Fixing Full Disk 100%, 99% Disk Error on Windows

Contents of this lengthy write-up include:
- Causes leading to the 100% Disk Error
- Methods to resolve the 100% Disk Error

Encountering this error will disrupt your workflow, causing inconvenience to computer users. Opening Task Manager will reveal the 100% Disk error under the Process tab. Let's delve into the causes and comprehensive solutions for them.

Causes of the 100% Disk Usage Error on Windows 10/8.1/7

Typically, the 100% Disk error occurs more frequently on older 'traditional' hard drives. The reason for this is quite simple: these hard drives are 'too old' to handle processes on the drive normally. However, in many cases, the error can also occur on the newest SSD drives.

Various factors contribute to the 100% Disk error, with some of the main causes being:

- The most common cause is when you update your operating system version.
- Antivirus programs and software installed on your computer.
- Corrupted system files.
- Functions that impact the system.
- Too many background services running.
- Certain programs activating multiple features.
- Viruses or malware attacks causing errors.
- Certain software, when opened, causing the 100% disk error.
- Due to incomplete updating of the latest drivers.

Method 1. Update to the Latest Version of Windows

Microsoft, the Windows publisher, regularly updates patches for its beloved child to make Windows operate more smoothly. If you've just reinstalled Windows and encounter the full disk error, try updating Windows to install those error patches.

Recently, Microsoft has released the Windows 10 Creators Update version to completely fix the 100% disk error, full disk error. You can update to it to avoid this error.

Method 2: Scan the Entire System for Viruses

The first step you should take is to use antivirus software to scan the entire system, then check the Disk Usage again. If everything is fine, you don't need to proceed with the following steps. But if the 100% full disk error persists, then you can try the other methods below.

Method 3: Disable Windows Defender

Windows Defender serves as a security program, effectively preventing viruses, and comes integrated into Windows versions 8 and above. However, this feature also poses challenges for users as it is one of the main causes of the full disk error.

To disable Windows Defender, navigate to Start Menu, search for the keyword gpedit, or press Windows + R to open Run and type gpedit.msc.

In the Local Group Policy Editor window, locate the file Turn off Windows Defender located within the Windows Defender directory at the following path:

Computer Configuration/Administrative Templates/Windows Components/Windows Defender

Double-click the Turn off Windows Defender file, then select Enable to disable Windows Defender, and click OK. Afterward, you can restart your computer to check if the full disk error or 100% disk issue still persists.

Method 4: Disable Windows Search

To confirm whether Windows Search is causing the 100% Full Disk error, the first step is to temporarily disable Windows Search and observe if your computer still experiences the Full Disk 100% error and if the speed has improved. If the Full Disk 100% error disappears, you can permanently disable Windows Search.

Temporarily Disable Windows Search

Windows Search is a tool that helps you search for files on your computer much faster. If you don't use Windows Search often or at all, or if you use another search application to find files, you can completely disable Windows Search. Disabling this service will stop indexing all files, but you still have the ability to search, albeit taking longer.

Below is how to temporarily disable Windows Search and check if it is the cause of the 100% Full Disk error. Note that Windows Search will restart when you reboot your computer.

Step 1: Press the Windows + X key combination to open the Power User Menu, then choose Command Prompt (Admin).

Step 2: If the User Account Control window appears, click Yes to continue.

Step 3: Now, the Command Prompt window will appear on the screen, and your task is to execute the following command:

net.exe stop 'Windows search'

Step 4: Press Enter to temporarily disable Windows Search.

Finally, check if the 100% Full Disk error persists. If the error is gone, it indicates that Windows Search is the cause of the issue, and you can proceed to disable Windows Search completely.

Completely Disable Windows Search

If you've identified Windows Search as the culprit behind the 100% Full Disk error, why hesitate to completely disable Windows Search to fix the issue at its root?

Step 1: Press the Windows + R key combination to open the Run command window, then type services.msc and press Enter to open the Services window.

Step 2: In the Services window, locate and double-click on the Windows Search option to open the Windows Search Properties window.

Step 3: In the Windows Search Properties window, set the Startup type to Disabled. Then click Apply and choose OK to save the changes.

Method 5: Disable Superfetch Service

The Superfetch service speeds up your computer's boot time by combining HDD with RAM, but you should disable this service if your computer has low specifications.

Open the Run window by pressing the Windows + R key combination and type services.msc

In the Services window, locate Superfetch and double-click on it.

In the Startup type section, choose Disabled, then click OK to completely disable the Superfetch service. After disabling this service, your computer may take a bit longer to boot up, but the full disk error will no longer occur.

Method 6: Limit Virtual Memory

The Virtual Memory feature helps relieve the load on your RAM by using memory from your HDD. When this feature is enabled, Windows constantly uses your hard drive (several GBs) as temporary storage to substitute for RAM. Storing large amounts of data can easily lead to full disk errors, so you should limit virtual memory to help your hard drive operate more smoothly.

Open the Control Panel from the Start Menu, select System.

In the System window, choose Advanced system settings on the left panel.

Select Settings… under Performance in the System Properties window.

Next, choose Change… under Virtual Memory to configure virtual memory changes.

Here, uncheck the box next to Automatically manage paging file size for all drives, then adjust the storage capacity in the Custom size section:

Initial size (MB): Minimum storage capacity

Maximum size (MB): Maximum storage capacity

You should set the minimum and maximum capacity to be half of your RAM size. For example, if your actual RAM is 4GB, you should only set the capacity to 2048MB (1GB = 1024MB) to avoid consuming too much hard drive space causing full disk errors, then click OK to complete the virtual memory setup.

Method 7: Use check disk command

Step 1: Press Windows + X to open the Power User Menu, then select Command Prompt (Admin).

Step 2: Click Yes on the UAC (User Account Control) window.

Step 3: In the Command Prompt window, enter the following command:

chkdsk.exe /f /r

Step 4: Press Enter, then enter Y to confirm that you want to use the command to check your hard drive for errors after your computer restarts. Note that you must first close all open applications and programs.

Important Note:

Check Disk will start checking your hard drive after your computer restarts, and the checking process may take a long time (even a day or more). After your computer restarts, if you don't have much time to wait for the scan process to finish, you can skip the process, but you will need to schedule a rescan.

Method 8: Defragmenting Hard Drive

After a period of using your computer, it's easy for your hard drive to develop bad sectors and fragmentation, causing data chaos. Therefore, sometimes when your computer freezes or experiences full disk, chances are your hard drive is fragmented. Nowadays, there are many excellent hard drive defragmentation software options available, such as Disk Fragmenter built into Windows or you can use HDD Generator.

Method 9: Temporarily Disable Antivirus Programs

If you have installed antivirus programs such as Norton, Kaspersky, AVG, or Malwarebytes on your Windows computer, try disabling these programs and check if fixing the Full Disk 100% error on Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7 was successful or not. If the error disappears, it means these antivirus programs are the cause of the Full Disk 100% error. In this case, you can contact the antivirus software developer for assistance.

Note that Microsoft defaults to installing Windows Defender antivirus software on Windows 10. This antivirus software is automatically activated even when users install and disable other antivirus programs. So even if you disable other antivirus programs on the system, you don't need to worry too much because Windows Defender will protect your system for a certain period of time.

Method 10: Use Troubleshooting

Both Windows 7/8/8.1/10 integrate the Troubleshooting feature, which is very useful for the system to detect and fix errors.

Access the Control Panel from the Start Menu and navigate to the Troubleshooting section.

In the Troubleshooting window, select the option Run maintenance tasks.

Click Next to initiate the scan for system issues, specifically targeting the full disk error.

After the scan completes, if prompted by the scanner to scan under admin rights, select Try troubleshooting as an administrator and wait for the scanner to automatically detect and fix the 100% disk error for you.

Method 11: Fix StorAHCI.sys driver error

If you've tried all the methods above to no avail and the 100% Full Disk error persists, try applying this solution to see if it helps.

The cause of the 100% Full Disk error on Windows 10 may be due to a software issue with the Advanced Host Controller Interface PCI-Express (AHCI PCIe) running the StorAHCI.sys driver.

Here's how to determine if the cause is the StorAHCI.sys driver and how to fix it:

Step 1: Open the Device Manager window by pressing the Windows + X key combination to open the Power User Menu, then select Device Manager.

Step 2: Expand the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers section, then locate and double-click on the AHCI controller.

Step 3: In the next window, go to the Driver tab, find and click on Driver Details. If you see storahci.sys in the system32 folder path, it means you're running the AHCI driver.

Step 4: Close the Driver Details window and navigate to the Details tab. From the menu, select Device Instance Path. Note the path starting with VEN_.

Step 5: Type regedit into the Search box on the Start Menu, then press Enter to open the Registry Editor.

Next, navigate to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Enum\PCI\ \\Device Parameters\Interrupt Management\MessageSignaledInterruptProperties

Where:

here is the name you saw in step 2.

Varies on different computer models.

Step 6: Find and double-click MSISupported and change the value in the Value data box to 0.

Step 7: Finally, restart your computer to apply the changes and check if the 100% Full Disk error persists.

Method 12: Update to the latest driver version

If the above methods fail to resolve the 100% Full Disk error on Windows 10, the cause may be outdated device drivers, such as your computer not having the latest driver version installed.

To automatically update all the latest driver versions on your computer, you can seek assistance from Driver Easy.

Driver Easy will automatically detect your system and find the newest and most accurate driver versions for your system. You don't have to worry about downloading and installing the wrong drivers, and importantly, you don't have to worry about encountering errors during installation.

With both the Free and Pro versions of Driver Easy, you can update your system drivers automatically. However, with the Pro version, updating to the latest driver version for your device is completed with just 2 mouse clicks.

Step 1: Download Driver Easy to your computer and install it.

Step 2: After installation, run Driver Easy and click the Scan Now button. Driver Easy will automatically scan your computer to check for any driver errors.

Step 3: Click the Update button next to the flagged driver to automatically download and install the correct and latest driver version (you can do this with the free version). Or click the Update All button to automatically download and install all missing or outdated drivers on your system (you will be prompted to upgrade to the Pro version when clicking Update All).

Method 13: Additional supplementary methods

In addition, you can apply some other methods below to fix the Full Disk 100% error on Windows 10, 8.1, 8, and 7:

- Additional Method 1:

Step 1: Use the Ctrl + Shift + Esc key combination to open Task Manager.
Step 2: Right-click on Disk and set the Resource Values from Values to Percents.
Step 3: Monitor the processes consuming high disk resources.
Step 4: Click the arrow icon next to suspicious processes to view the services of that process.
Step 5: Open the Services window by pressing the Windows + R key combination to open the Run command window, then type services.msc in it and press Enter.
Step 6: Find suspicious services and stop them.
Step 7: Right-click on the service causing the issue, select Properties to open the service's property window, where you have the option to completely disable that service.
Step 8: Finally, check if the Full Disk 100% error persists.

- Additional Method 2:

Windows antivirus software can also be the culprit behind the Full Disk 100% error. Follow the steps below to fix it:

Step 1: Press the Windows + W key combination and type administrative tools in the Search box.
Step 2: Select Administrative Tools, then choose Task Scheduler.
Step 3: Next, in the left pane, navigate to the following key:
Task Scheduler Library/Microsoft/Windows/Windows defender
Step 4: Uncheck all items under Idle, Power, and Network.
Step 5: From now on, you don't need to scan your computer anymore.

- Additional Method 3:

Some users have reported that after uninstalling Flash Player updates, the Full Disk 100% error no longer appeared on their computer. 

To uninstall Flash Player updates, access the Windows update history, then find the Update Flash Player option and select Uninstall to remove the installation.

Some software causing the full disk 100% error

Aside from having too many running services on the computer, the full disk 100% error can also be caused by various software updates.

1. Full disk 100% error caused by Google Chrome

Google Chrome is notorious for being a CPU and RAM hog and can potentially cause the 100% Disk error. To fix the 100% Disk error, you can disable some extensions, plugins, and features directly affecting Disk Usage.

Follow the steps below:

- Open Chrome, enter chrome://settings/ in the address bar, then press Enter.
- Scroll down to find and click Show advanced settings.
- Uncheck the option named Use a prediction service to load pages more quickly.
- From the browser's Settings window, click on Extensions, then disable the extensions you want.
- Enter chrome://plugins/ in the browser's address bar and disable unnecessary plugins.
- Restart your Google Chrome browser.

2. Full disk 100% error when using Skype

Skype is also one of the programs known for consuming a lot of disk space and CPU. On Windows 10 and Windows 8, Microsoft has integrated this app into the operating system. There are 2 options available: completely remove Skype or configure settings if you still want to use Skype.

- Option 1: Uninstall Skype
You can uninstall the Skype app if you don't use it by removing Skype in the Uninstall a Program section of the Control Panel or using uninstaller software like Your Uninstaller.

- Option 2: Keep Skype, configure as follows:
+ Navigate to the path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Skype\Phone\ for Windows 64-bit or C:\Program Files\Skype\Phone\ for Windows 32-bit.
+ Right-click on skype.exe and select Properties.
+ In the Properties window, on the Security tab, click the Edit button.
+ Select ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES, then uncheck the Write box.
+ Click Apply and then click OK.
 

There are various ways to fix the full disk 100% error; however, Mytour only presents the main causes and solutions to you. If you notice your computer is slow, freezing, or hanging without being caused by a full disk, then read the article on how to fix a hanging computer to find out the solution.

Read more: How to fix a hanging computer

Wishing you success!