Since a recent update this keeps happening and its reduced my laptop to a crawl. Via Task Manager I can see the ONLY thing using the disk is Norton, which when it's happening takes it to 97,98,100%.
Windows 10, bang up to date, Norton ditto.
Suggestions? This is getting seriously annoying.
Thanks.
You're most welcome.
Cheers
Ah, thanks for that. I can't believe the speed difference this fix has made.
If Seagate's Contact Us wasn't so impenetrable I'd actually send them a short thank you email for SeaTools :-)
Thanks again guys.
Cheers,
David
David. LBA errors are more simply stated as Logical Block Addressing is something that make users to worry about the hard drive and the data present on it technically refers to bad sectors, which is more or less the error that blocks read / write operation on a hard drive sector. Most manufacturers DO have their own set of similar tools available.
Cheers
SeaTools Bootable took about 30 seconds to fix and the Event Viewer disk errors are still 0 now, versus many 1000's. Laptop is behaving like new speedwise. I was toying with trying ReadyBoost but probably won't bother now.
SeaTools fixed an "LBA error" (still to look that up!).
I think a quick weekly check of Event Viewer and perhaps a monthly go of SeaTools is now firmly in my "admin" regime.
SeaTools is only for Seagate and Maxtor disks but I imagine WD etc have their equivalents.
Cheers,
David
I just tried it through the GUI version which I think is the same as /f /r at the command line.
How long did the SeaTools Fix take? I have been searching online, and I only see implications that the GUI version (right click on drive, click Properties, click Tools and Check disk) only appears to do a chkdsk (driveletter): /f , which only fixes file system errors. The sites I checked say the scan can take up to 5 minutes. That would not be enough time to scan all sectors on a hard drive for physical problems on the disk. Any time I have run chkdsk c: /r it has taken well over 30 minutes depending on the size of the drive.
One site I was looking at is TenForums. Here is the article I read there, which mirrors the information I saw on other sites..
I just tried it through the GUI version which I think is the same as /f /r at the command line.
Well impressed with SeaTools though. Laptop is zipping along just now. Hopefully, that'll continue... touch wood, salt etc.
Cheers,
David
What parameters did you use for chkdsk? I usually run with a " /r" which will check for bad sectors. Without that, it only checks the file system, not the physical disk.
This got much more interesting so I'm going to tempt fate and share this just in case it helps anyone else.
Having got some speed back to the laptop I noticed the Event Viewer was ongoingly riddled with bad block messages about the hard disk. Chkdsk said all was well. Trying to take a disk image failed with "new bad sectors in source drive". Chkdsk said all was well.
Hmmm, this doesn't look good at all. Back all my files up onto new external hard disk.
What kind of disk do I have... Seagate... onto their website... SeaTools... OK... download, install, run, fails basic test.
Download SeaTools Bootable which creates a Linux disk on a USB drive. Boot from that. Run basic test, fail. OK, here goes nothing Fix All Fast... says it fixed something... Run basic test, pass.
Reboot from HD back into Windows, start up SeaTools in Windows, run basic test, pass.
Check Event Viewer, no bad block stuff.
Has it been that all along? Constant interrupts about bad blocks? Is it fixed? Too early to tell.
Doesn't leave me with much faith in chkdsk though...
Thanks,
David
Good news David. Keep in mind, if you are on Windows 10 Pro you can defer "feature updates" which will keep your svchost busy as a bee re-downloading updates every restart. If you are on Windows 10 Home that will not be available before updating to 1903. And yes, updates WILL reenable fast startup.
You can also download a copy of Malwarebytes which is free, run a full scan to see if it finds anything funky like bad registry entries. PUPS or PUAS.
Cheers
Almost - touch wood - back to normal.
Fast Startup seemed to have been re-enabled itself somehow (an update?) so that's switched off again.
I changed my Paging File from automatic to custom and set it at the same min and max size as my RAM.
I killed off a couple of services that seem to keep popping up and have a few more in the cross hairs.
So far, so good, though I now see the Windows 10 1903 update is waiting in the wings :-( it can wait... compared to the last couple of weeks, this is positively zippy (throws salt over shoulder...)
Am toying with buying an SD card and trying ReadyBoost now too.
Cheers,
David
You're most welcome!
Cheers
Thanks - everything is up to date but will take a look at those links...
Cheers.
Your version of Norton may not be the latest with VPN, therefore it was just a suggestion to look for it and disable in case you have the latest N360 installed. Have you received the latest patch Tuesday updates from Windows Update? There are tons of bug squashes in the last round yesterday. Something you may want to look at are the background apps running in your windows settings.
Have a look at the items in your Task Manager under the "Startup" tab as well. You can disable items not needed to start when windows starts there, reboot and recheck. System services running can also help prevent things from running unless manually triggered. I would disable RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol), Remote Registry as a start. Here is a great tutorial for doing that. I am also including a list of services article to assist with services safe to disable.
Cheers
Hi,
I can’t find any NortonSecureVPN service running (via Task Manager) does it hide somewhere else?
Still doing it but it’s not totally Norton doing it, I can see a few other things Microsoft Compatibility Telemetry etc joining in, though not quite as much as Norton. And the behviour is very bursty, like it’s fine right now as I type this…
Thanks,
David
Thanks David. You may also want to open your Norton UI, at the top right click on "help". The next dialog then opens, look to the left and click on "Get Support" which will run an automated tool to check your Norton install for issues, then correct any that are found.
Cheers
Hi,
Yes and yes. I shall try the latter. Is it safe to do that though?
I find it does this 100% disk in bursts of up to about 10 minutes and then it calms down again for a while.
Also, as of the latest update with the wee greyed out icon that eventually colours in, it seems to take an age at startup for it to actually colour in.
Feeling like a buggy update.
Cheers,
David
Hello David. Have you done the standard disable fast startup and a reboot? I personally saw this a couple of days ago and went into Windows services, disabled the NortonSecureVPN service, setting it at manual. Then rebooted. The issue corrected itself for me. I can only suggest that you try and see what results you get.
Cheers