So this is my second attempt at posting this topic, the first one apparently was "lost" somewhere.
This problem has been posted repeatedly in the forums but never addressed by Norton in a satisfactory way (not blaming the forum volunteers, this is something that the company needs to address):
https://community.norton.com/forums/very-high-disk-usage-caused-distrptrdat-file
https://community.norton.com/en/forums/high-disk-write-distrptrdat
The "short version" is that Norton 360 under some (unknown) conditions will "spin out of control" and take up 100% of all disk access time, writing to a file called "diStRptr.dat" in one of the subfolders under \ProgramData (which is a hidden folder). Norton seems loath to address this, and most comments seem to be of the "have you tried updating your system or uninstalling/reinstalling" variety.
I have verified using Resource Monitor that the file in question is the one being read/written to and that Norton is the one doing the reading/writing. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling multiple times (I have 4 PCs running Windows 7 so I have had lots of opportunities to do that.) The only solution I have found that fixes the problem is to:
- Reboot into Safe Mode.
- Delete the diStRptr.dat file.
- Reboot again into "normal" Windows operation.
Needless to say this is somewhat of an interruption, and fixes the problem for a few days at most. I have really had it with Norton on this issue. Unless someone can escalate this and get a fix from Norton (one that actually fixes the problem) I will be looking around for another solution the next time I upgrade.