100% Disk Usage

1.  Before replacing hardware, check for processes running/using disk.  Also check system event logs to see if you're getting errors of some kind.
2.  Macrium Reflect has worked fine for me for swapping system drives.

I have an Acer laptop with a 500GB spinning disk, and I started experiencing the same thing after upgrading to Windows 10.
 
I have shut down as many things as Win 10 Home will let me, such as file indexing, search, etc.  But after boot I still see my disk usage go to 100% for a while after first booting up.  Once I let it finish and settle down, everything works fine!
 
At this point the delay has been cut down from about 10 mins, to about 2-3 mins.  Unless it has been a while, and everything starts automatically checking for updates at the same time.  That will beat a 5400RPM drive to death as well.
 
What I usually see in task manager is that Windows processes are mainly behind this, particularly related to Service Host and Superfetch.  I could disable that like I did on my PC with an SSD, but it probably helps performance to leave it enabled on a spinning drive.
 
If I swapped the drive in my laptop to SSD this problem might go away, or at least become so quick that it wouldn't be detectable.  Plus I would disable Superfetch in that case.  But unfortunately the drive swap on my laptop model is very difficult as it requires a near total teardown to access the drive.  If you are lucky enough to have an  drive access door in the bottom of the case, I would say go for the SSD!

This happened with a couple of laptops in the household and it was software, services, to blame.  There is some info on the web regarding this problem.  On one laptop I uninstalled AVG Free and switched to Avast, but a Windows Update also had a machine locked up.

You may want to consider pursuing this on the Windows 10 forum (not a Microsoft site)   www.tenforums.com
Some knowledgeable users there.
 

What was weird, my laptop came with Win 8.1, which I upgraded to Win 10 last year.  Don't recall having this issue on Win 8.1.
 
I only noticed this 100% disk usage after the upgrade to Win 10.  Same hardware, same BIOS, same applications, etc.
 
If you open Resource Monitor and study the Disk Activity page, you can see the tasks and the file paths that are actively being read/written.
 
Typically I am only seeing low CPU use while pegged at 100% HDD by various processes for a period after boot.  Obviously a lot of concurrent read/writes going on.  Maybe developers these days just assume the majority of users are on SSD now, and code accordingly?

TheSteven

abacab
Maybe developers these days just assume the majority of users are on SSD now, and code accordingly?

Nah, that's like saying car stereo designers assume everyone drives a porsche.
What media the software is running on is just not a designer consideration in most cases.
 
Some activities such as modifying files are disk intensive or when your PC reboots and numerous programs are loading. That is normal. If it bothers you get a faster hard drive or an SSD.
 
The concern is when your PC shows constant non-stopping 100% usage.
In this case something is wrong and unless the problem is the harddisk itself (as opposed to let's say OS corruption) cloning the system and migrating to an SSD might not change things, it might instead lead to premature SDD failure.
 

I guess maybe I should have been more specific.  The issue of 100% usage on HDD after startup is more of a bottleneck related to too many things trying to access the disk at the same time.  But it's not noticeable on my SSD equipped DAW PC Running Win 10.
 
The Windows devs at Microsoft could have changed the scheduling priorities for startup services and tasks in Windows 10, assuming that more powerful multi-core PC's are the norm. 
 
It has always been a balancing act between hardware capabilities and the software that runs on it.   It was only a few years ago that web browsers and Flash became so heavy that you needed at least a dual core CPU to stream YouTube video, even with enough RAM and a decent GPU.  Had to say goodbye to my single core stuff.  That's progress ... new code is always written to take advantage of the next gen hardware.

I ruled out the system page file on my Win 10 laptop by disabling it and rebooting.  It runs OK with 4GB RAM and no paging.  It is still worth a shot to try and troubleshoot though, as all systems are different, and there are probably many possible causes for these symptoms.
 
My HDD was still busy after booting.  But once Windows settles down, everything runs smoothly. 
 
Hardware tests fine, no errors.
 
So in my case, it appears to be a Windows issue.  I'm just going to live with it, or upgrade to an SSD.  But since it's just a computer for traveling, and not my DAW, not that concerned about it.  Just wanted to share info with the OP, since it sounded very similar to his case.

I use the ol' "metered connection" trick to be absolutely sure Windows updates are not downloaded ... 

Abacab, your experiencd is very similar to mine although this laptop was win10 from the start. That said, the first I noticed it was after a big update (anniversary I think) and the problem persisted and is especially bad the first boot after a windows update. I have seen on other forums the idea that win10 is not friendly to spinning boot disks but I find that unlikely. Will check the tenforums.

filtersweep
Will check the tenforums.

Tenforums is a great resource.  I use it regularly, and have found some very helpful tutorials there, as well as some helpful members.
 
But if one has already exhausted the other web forums and tried everything else suggested, I find that posting a unique problem there attracts mostly the same suggestions.
 
The site that drives me mostly nuts is the Microsoft answers community.  I think of it as the "no answers" forum, LOL!  https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/

I know this won't help but, as a rule, I never upgrade OS's. I buy or build a new system.
 
My only experience with migrating OS HDDs was a disaster, so I won't be doing that again either.

Just an observation, but recently I was testing my backup software's restore function, and restored my system's SSD image onto a 7200 RPM HDD, and booted from that as a test.
 
Then I observed that Windows 10 was now running at a crawl with 100% disk usage shown in Task Manager.  Exact same build, only difference is the boot disk.
 
So it appears that when running my Windows 10 normally on SSD, these same disk consuming processes take place, but they run in seconds, rather than minutes, so they are not noticeable for me.

filtersweep

abacab
Just an observation, but recently I was testing my backup software's restore function, and restored my system's SSD image onto a 7200 RPM HDD, and booted from that as a test.
 
Then I observed that Windows 10 was now running at a crawl with 100% disk usage shown in Task Manager.  Exact same build, only difference is the boot disk.
 
So it appears that when running my Windows 10 normally on SSD, these same disk consuming processes take place, but they run in seconds, rather than minutes, so they are not noticeable for me.

 
Interesting, I have seen others make a similar observation. Even suggesting that Win10 is designed to run off SSD, though it seems a stretch to think that MS would go out of their way to alienate all the HDD users. That said, my desktop is all ssd and boots in seconds, no issues whatsoever,

I don't think it's deliberate, but I know what I have observed with my own eyes.  At least I now can relax and assume that nothing is wrong with my Win10 laptop running with a spinning drive.
 
It's just that technology moves on, and there may be an unintended discrimination against those who cling to old tech for too long.  Today's developers and testers are using modern machines, and competition keeps their efforts closer to the bleeding edge.  They might not notice the effects of running on old hardware, as it is not in their interest to prioritize that for testing.
 
I can recall when the shift away from single core CPU's, to multi-core systems began.  For a few years most software continued to run fine on single core, but then gradually most newer software performed well only on multi-core as that architecture became mainstream.
 
I tried to fight that trend for a while, and continued to run a 32-bit OS as well, but several developers I depend on switched to 64-bit support only.  So switching to a 64-bit multi-core CPU became inevitable.
 
But I will add that I upgraded to SSD on my DAW PC when I was still running Windows 7, and was awed by the improved performance.  Highly recommend SSD, regardless of the OS you are running today.  And the prices for SSD are low enough now that anybody can afford one! 

BobF
I don't buy that this is just the way it is with W10 and HDD.  There is something wrong.  Switching to SSD is treating the symptom rather than the disease.

I dunno Bob, but when I temporarily switched my DAW back to HDD, it F'd up too ...  Back to SSD, happy again.  Don't know what to say...