Do you get annoyed when a folder or a file sometimes takes way longer to open? The hard disk light is always on and it looks like your computer has been brought down to its knees.

It might be happening that some program in the background is moving or copying the data excessively from the system memory to virtual memory or vice versa. This is called Disk Thrashing.

Disk thrashing reduces the overall performance of the computer and can make even a simple task such as opening a folder take a hell lot of time. However, once you recognize which program in the background is thrashing your hard disk, you can safely end the process if it doesn’t hurts the system.

Identifying & Removing the background program thrashing the Hard Disk using Task Manager:

1. Start Task Manager. (Ctrl+Alt+Del)
2. Go to Processes Tab.
3. Click on View from the menu and then Click Columns.
4. Select I/O Writes and Click Ok. (See figure below)

   

5. Now, any program having a very high I/O Write will be the one thrashing your hard disk and you can end the process to stop the disk thrashing temporarily. (Opera in our case, see below)

Now that you know what is causing disk thrashing on your computer, you can begin to troubleshoot. Start by disabling programs or process, don’t just uninstall applications.

Make sure you find out why the problem is occurring (like does it happens during some specific operation? etc). Once you do, your disk thrashing days can finally come to an end.

Note: Some system programs cannot be ended from the Task Manager.