Tips to Fix 100 Disk Usage in Windows 7/8/8.1/10/11 in 2025

"I have a fairly new hard drive, but my computer is extremely laggy, so I checked disk activity, and it's almost always at 100%."

Top 5 Ways to Fix 100 Disk Usage in Windows 7/8/8.1/10/11

Computers or laptops are becoming slower with notice popping up frequently, warning you that disk is 100% used? How to fix the disk 100 usage issue and optimize computer performance? Don't let these problems bother you anymore. Here below, you'll find effective solutions to fix Windows 7 100disk usage issue with ease.

How to Tell Windows 7 Disk Usage Situation

It's highly necessary to check the disk usage situation before finding out why the disk is fully used. Follow and check the disk usage situation now:

Press CTRL+ALT+DEL > Right-click Taskbar > Select Task Manager > Tap Processes

If some useless programs are taking space in Windows disk, select it and click "End Task" to stop it from running right away. And then, you can figure out how to fix the "disk 100% used" issue. Here are some recommended methods for you to fix and solve the disk 100% usage issue in Windows 10/8/7.

Read Also: 100% Disk Usage on Windows 10

Fix 1. Check and Fix System Error to Fix 100 Disk Usage

The very first thing you need to do is check your disk errors. In some cases, the 100% disk usage can be caused by unknown system errors. You can use the CHKDSK command to check and fix disk errors or use third-party disk repair software - EaseUS Partition Master. With it, you can check and fix disk errors with simple steps.

• Increase C drive space.
• Resize/move, merge, clone partition, and check file system error.
• Clone disk, convert to MBR/GPT, convert to dynamic/basic, and even wipe data.
• Migrate OS, increase partition space, and more

Step 1. Right-click the target partition that may have a problem.

Step 2. Choose "Check" > "Check File System".

Step 3. In the Check File System window, check the "Try to fix errors if found" option by clicking the "Start" button. 

Step 4. Please wait patiently. After the process, you can click the "Finish" button to exit the window. 

Fix 2. Reset the Virtual Memory If Windows 100% Used

Virtual memory is a combination of RAM and hard disk space. It is one of the possible causes behind the 100% disk usage issue. If your computer still has a 100 disk usage problem, you can reset virtual memory to fix it.

Step 1. Press Windows key + Pause/ Break key at the same time. Then choose Advanced System Settings on the left panel.

Step 2. Go to the "Advanced" tab, then click "Settings". 

Step 3. Go to the "Advanced" tab again, and choose Change in the Virtual memory section. 

Step 4. Make sure that the Automatically manage paging file size for all drives checkbox is NOT ticked.

Step 5. Select your windows drive (the hard drive or partition that has Windows installed on it – usually C:), and enter an Initial size and Maximum size for your virtual memory: 

Once you've entered your virtual memory values, click Set, then click "OK" to continue.

Fix 3. Stop Some Windows Service to Fix Windows 7 100% Disk Usage

If Fix 2 fails, you may need to disable some of the mysterious, cumbersome background services in Windows like Superfetch.

Step 1. Press Windows + R or type Run in the Windows 7 search box. Type services.msc into the "Open" box and click the "OK" button.

Step 2. Now find "Superfetch". Right-click it > select "Properties" > click "Stop" on the pop-up windows > click "Disabled" from the 'startup type' drop-down menu.

Fix 4. Clean Up System Files to Speed Up Windows 7

If Windows is running slow, you can clean up system files to speed it up. You can manually clean up system files or using a light-weight cleanup software. Here are the steps:

Step 1. Download and install EaseUS Partition Master Suite.

Step 2. Click PC Cleaner and install EaseUS CleanGinus. Then, click "Cleanup" and click "Scan" to start cleaning up the system and make your PC as good as new.

Step 3. The software will scanning all over your computer to find idle data files that take a huge amount of disk space, you can select useless large files, system junk files and Windows invalid entries and click "Clean" to start system cleanup process.

Step 4. When the scan is complete, click "Done" to finish cleaning system junk files.

Fix 5. Upgrade Your HDD/SSD to A Bigger One

If none of the solutions work, you can upgrade your SSD or HDD to a bigger one. EaseUS Partition Master can help you replace the hard drive or SSD with a new one without taking the time to reinstall the Windows operating system. 

Step 1. Select the source disk.

• Click the "Clone" from the left menu. Select the "Clone OS Disk" or "Clone Data Disk"  and click "Next".
• Choose the source disk and click "Next".

Step 2. Select the target disk.

• Choose the wanted HDD/SSD as your destination and click "Next" to continue.
• Read Warning message and confirm "Yes" button.

Step 3. View the disk layout and edit the target disk partition size. 

Then click "Continue" when the program warns it will wipe out all data on the target disk. (If you have valuable data on the target disk, back up it in advance.)

You can select "Autofit the disk", "Clone as the source" or "Edit disk layout" to customize your disk layout. (Select the last one if you want to leave more space for C drive.)

Step 4. Click "Start" to start the disk cloning process.

Conclusion

After all these steps, your computer with disk 100% used problem will be solved then. You will enjoy an optimized computer with a big available space to store more useful data then. If you still have 100 disk usage problems like Windows 10 Microsoft Compatibility Telemetry high disk usage, or Antimalware Service Executable high CPU usage, you can also ask EaseUS for help.

100% Disk Usage in Windows 7/8/8.1/10/11 FAQs

You can get additional help here if you read on.

How do I reduce disk usage in Windows 7?

To reduce Windows 7 disk usage:

• Move the temp files
• Disable the paging file
• Symlink the Windows update download folder

Why my disk usage is high?

If you consistently see a very high disk usage, it means there is something else going on that isn't quite right. You can right-click the Start button, and select Task Manager, or you can press CTRL + SHIFT + ESC.

What is taking up space on my hard drive Windows 7?

To see what is taking up space

Step 1. Show hidden files on the hard drive

Step 2. Analyze hard drive and find what's eating up hard drive space

How many GB should windows 7 take up?

1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit) 16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit).