I recently pulled out an old 4GB USB drive that I hadn't used in years, thinking it was empty. I connected it to my PC along with a regularly-used USB stick, but after about 10 minutes, my computer slowed down significantly and started acting unresponsive. Rebooting took forever, and when I checked Task Manager, I saw that my disk usage was at 100% and my CPU usage was high. I ran a full Windows Defender scan, but it didn't find anything suspicious. Any ideas on what's going on? Also, I'm using Windows 11.
2 Answers
I agree with the above. A failing drive can cause a ton of issues. Checking the Windows Event Log might give you more insight into what's wrong. But honestly, if that drive is old, it might be worth just replacing it.
It's possible that your old USB drive might be failing. When a drive has bad sectors, your PC will try to mark those as unusable, which can slow everything down as it reallocates the data. This could definitely lead to the kind of issues you experienced.
Yeah, I rebooted again and the problem stopped. Thanks for the info!
I removed the drive and did another reboot—it’s back to normal now. Definitely going to ditch that old thing!