Excessive External Drive Activity?

[squint72]

Hi all,

 

So this is a strange one....I have had DiskCryptor (version 1.1) installed for at least a couple of years now and recently ran into a strange issue?  I have had this external drive encrypted for a long time as it contains all of my personal files, etc.  DiskCryptor is NOT running in the background and I have even restarted my PC yet this Disk G still has almost 100% activity?  It slows down a lot of things on my PC like when I download a file, there is a long pause (10-15 seconds) before it will start the download, when I launch a game it takes WAY longer, etc, etc.  Even if I launch Diskcryptor, it takes several minutes to even open because of this drive being maxed out with disk activity.  The only way I can get it to stop is to physically unplug the drive.  Any thoughts on what the issue might be?  Thanks....

 

 

[johnt]

You can check with some SMART disk software like Crystal Disk Info, but every time this happened to me it would say I had a UltraDMA CRC Error, and the root cause was 1) a bad data cable, or 2) a poorly installed/loose data cable. YMMV but I had this problem frequently with my server and reseating the wires fixed it. Now that I know, I make sure to give all my SATA wires a good push after toying with the internals.

 

Just make sure you are able to turn off your computer safely first before tugging at the wires.

 

Since yours is an external drive, how is it connected? Do you have an enclosure or just floating wires?

[OddOod]

It *could* be windows defender trying to scan it, especially if each file's encrypted individually.

Or it could easily be a dying HDD or dying controller board inside the external drive (all these drives just use SATA interfaces internally and there has to be a lil board that can convert between USB and SATA).
First thing I'd do is go into task manager and sort by disk usage

then check SMART with Crystal disk info

[leclod]

Once a week my HDDs go in defragmentation mode which might feel similar to your issue.

You can check this by opening the defrag window.

Edited July 17, 2025 by leclod

[Kilrah]

Open Resource Monitor on the Disks tab and sort for activity to see what's using it. 

[squint72]

Thanks for all the replies guys!  I tried everything and am at a loss.  I just unplugged them for now.  I appreciate your help!

[squint72]

so i tried this again and plugged the drive in and used resource monitor and the "system" entry appeared and that's the culprit but not sure how to narrow it down further?

 

 

[Kilrah]

Check in "Disk activity" below what files on that drive are being read, might help understand it. 

[squint72]

sorry, where exactly do you mean?

[Kilrah]

click to expand 

 

[Mark Kaine]

Are there any media files on the disk?

Also are you sure it's not defrag doing this? 

[squint72]

No, it's just personal docs, etc.  I'm pretty sure I know what's happening but can't resolve it.  When I first set up the drive, I had Diskcryptor start encrypting it but it was going to take 3-4 days to complete so I cancelled it.  I still have to enter the password to mount it and that was fine, but now as soon as I plug in the drive, the drive activity spikes to 95-98% immediately.  Then when I open Diskcryptor to try and find the setting to decrypt it or disable the auto resume encrypt or whatever is causing the issue, it won't let me click anything and immediately says "not responding" because the program is locking up due to the external drive being thrashed.  If that makes sense.  The stranger part, is when I fresh boot windows, there isn't even any diskcryptor processes running in the background?

[squint72]

I realize this is an older thread, but I'm circling back to this with some new info and am hoping to solve this.  So apparently, Diskcryptor can have issues/conflicts with Windows storage controller drivers and this can cause this constant disk activity.  I have tried updating the storage controller drivers, tried uninstalling the newest version of Diskcryptor and putting an older version on but I am still getting this 95%- 98% disk activity.  Does anyone have any thoughts on this possible storage controller issue and what I can do to try and resolve this?  Even when I plug the external drive into my Windows 11 laptop, it does the same thing!  Thanks in advance.