100% Disk Usage. PC crippled. Even Ctrl+Alt+Del cannot be invoked

[dean]

First post.
Had to join some Win7 forums, as MS REMOVED THE OPTION TO REPAIR OUR COMPUTERS (since any OS after XP x86/x64) and, since then, have been constantly taking us out of action.
I am sick of seeing suggestions for System Restore [TIME TRAVEL IS NOT An ENLIGHTENING SOLUTION] or reinstall [EIGHT TIMES IN FIVE YEARS IS OUTRAGEOUS! But, you know, that really crap Repair install kept XP systems running optimally for THIRTEEN YEARS! SO CRAP, IT HAD TO BE REMOVED and SFC had to be turned into someting lazy and Search had to be disabled - though they left the field for it... SICK JOKERS!] or the option of disk imaging! Yeah, sure. More TIME TRAVEL, but better make sure your system is PERMANENTLY imaging the disk, you POWER USERS, in case you change anything ever that you don't wish to roll back - like SEVERAL TIMES per day!!!

Takes longer to start.
Won't even shut down.
Eventually screen goes black with a cursor but disk thrashing continues indefinitely until a hard reset is performed.
Get a couple of minutes opportunity when starting machine, before whole thing grinds to a halt - except the HDD which is hell bent on self-destruction.
Tried a few suggested solutions to no avail.
No! it is not malware.
Well, technically it is, as MS is the greatest provider of malware.

 

[dean]

So far, I've tried running the new lazy version of SFC [lazy, because it never replaces files from the install media so, if files are corrupt in your local store, it'll just return something akin to "yeah, just as you thought, your system is knackered, but don't expect me to do anything about it" - which was what I ws dealing with before MS stopped messing around and finally took down my PC AGAIN[!] about a month and a half ago]
I've tried disabling Indexing/Search/Superfetch. Indexing/search were already disabled [who needs them, when THERE IS NO WORKING SEARCH FUNCTION INCLUDED WITH WIN7?!] and Superfetch made no difference so I re-enabled it.
I've tried “netsh winsock reset”
Tried disabling my 24GB fixed swap file.
Likely some others - which I've forgotten.

Whatever else I try, it's going to have to be executed from Safe Mode, a Linux LiveCD or initially, as soon as the computer starts, within the approximate TWO MINUTES I get before it is completely crippled to the point of being disabled - although there is a visible desktop and a mouse cursor, attempting to do anything with them will return nothing but indefinite hangs.

SCRATCH THAT! I've not even got enough time to get Resource Monitor fired up. The system begins crippling itself before it can even load everything.

I'm sure all these hard resets aren't doing any favours but, then, I HAVE NO CHOICE other than the equally destructive PSU switch or power outlet plug at the wall.

I think it could be something to do with the Catroot2 folder [the one in System32, not the one in SysWOW64] and logs upon logs being created/accessed.

 

[dean]

Well, I can open some windows - eventually. It's a bit annoying that I can't apply/okay/close them afterwards.
How the hell am I even going to get SysInternals running?!
THIS IS PERFECT MS INDUSTRIAL SABOTAGE. GOTTA HAND IT TO THEIR GENIUS IN THAT RESPECT.

I'm now in the middle of uninstalling some (otherwise) normally functioning applications while under a Clean Boot environment - which, in all honesty, is not looking any better so I'm guessing the blame lies squarely with MS and my uninstallations are A FUTILE WASTE OF MY PRECIOUS TIME - AS IS ALL OF THIS.

Thank god they removed that stupid, useless ineffective Repair install, else I'd be back wasting my life using the computer after 1/2 hour instead of having lots of fun troubleshooting a problem which won't even identify itself.

Speaks for itself:-

Windows XP x86/x64: Repair install has it running for THIRTEEN years (with the addtional non-lazy SFC and CMD prompt - for boot/hive repair) with no need for that broken security vulnerability named System Restore and NO REINSTALL = WHAT A LOAD OF RUBBISH!!!

Windows [any version since]: No Repair install = attempted use Startup "your computer is not broken. Go away and don't bother me again" Repair and 50/50 hit/miss System Restore - which you still have to follow up in order to get your system back to its original state and, when that fails, TRY TO ACCESS YOUR DRIVE VIA A LINUX LIVECD/DVD IN ORDER TO BACK UP YOUR DATA [hope you have another drive available - unlike me, who is fast runinng out of them] before REINSTALL! - EIGHT TIMES IN FIIVE YEARS!!! = BRILLIANT. PERFECT 10/10. MS, YOU ARE THE BEST AT THIS!!!

And that's why I'm here - because I don't want to see recommendations to SYSTEM RESTORE or REINSTALL any more and, instead, want REAL INFORMATION and REAL SOLUTIONS.
Whenever I get a problem with 7, I find web comments on the web all relating to WinME 2 [codename V*st*] because, let's face it, 7 is actually a deception which should be named WinME 2.1 (minus the more obvious unpopularities) with 8 being WinME 3 and 8.1 being WinME 3.1 - though those have the addition of official industrial-strength databasing trackerware, not forgetting Fisher Price likely involvement with the for-someone-more-computer-illiterate-than-a-Mac-user GUI.

Can you sense that I'm losing patience?

 

[dean]

My Resource Monitor Disk Activity shows many instances of EDBTMP.LOG and EDB.LOG after the initial system resource hog at the top, which is System accessing a long alphanumeric [hex] string named folder within the System32\Catroot2 directory followed by SVCHOST.EXE (NETWORK SERVICE) [despite the network currently being disabled due to security not working due to this issue] creating an NTFS VOLUME LOGFILE.

 

[dean]

YEY! My first Shut Down!!! - although it still really struggled (and I needed to invoke it as an uninstallation had locked up) and is still operating under Clean Boot environment.

 

[TrainableMan]

Dean, could you tell us your system specs? There are some computers that should never be upgraded to Windows 7, for example if it has less than 2 GB of RAM. Did you run the W7 Upgrade Advisor before you upgraded to Windows 7?

And even though support ended for XP there is no reason you can't continue using it; in 30 years I don't believe I ever contacted Microsoft support for anything but activation.

And just in case you think you are speaking to Microsoft by posting here, you are not. This site is not maintained or answered by Microsoft staff, we are simply fellow users.

 

[Fixer1234]

Dean, I got sort of lost trying to understand your posts--exactly what the current problem is. Now that you've ventilated about Microsoft (and I know that one can never do that enough), can you give us a CliffsNotes version? Like that old "Dragnet" TV show, "Just the facts, Ma'am." (probably before your time).

 

[Shintaro]

Mate,

There is a lot of help here, you just need to start responding. There are many ways to fix your problem.

 

[dean]

Hey guys!
Thanks for the replies.
I couldn't find the thread again (which is why I never returned) and the problem fixed itself after a correct reboot after Safe Mode. As you may be aware, reboots and shut downs are not possible when the machine gets crippled like this; only HARD RESETS are possible.
Anyway, I found this thread again via my phone now that the problem has resurfaced.
Regarding my spec's: It's not the issue, though I could start with 6x CPU cores @ 3.5GHz each... I think we can probably forget the rest. Incidentally, I have no odd partition/install setup, don't have an SSD and have no other attached HW which is a bit unusual in its usage. It's a straight-up near-silent system for nice audio and is still capable for modern gaming with only Crysis performance saddening me somewhat where other, visually stunning games, run well. I haven't tried 2 and 3 yet, though I own them, but I'm not holding out that they'll be any better, only much worse :-(
Basically, it seems to be something accessing the System process writing these EDB log files in the Catroot2 folder.
Unfortunately, with the machine being so utterly crippled, I can't download and install ProcMon to see what is actually causing the problem.
Windows has decided to begin CONTINUOUSLY writing, deleting and rewriting them - at the expense of the entire system which runs like a Pentium I 166MHz with NO RAM, using the swap file of an old ATA33 HDD as substitute.
It started again after yesterday's WU.
I've had ridiculous warnings about Explorer.exe not being able to access a server, TaskMan/ Start Up and Shut Down options not being able to be displated and "Microsoft Windows: The application is not responding" - Umm?... that's the OS, idiots, not an app!!!
I can't run anything. If I click anything, it may or may not serve up an error - after five or ten minutes.
To the guy who mentioned it, I have a couple of WinXP Pro X86 installs still running well and this is being typed on WinXP Pro X64 [Server 2003] - which is a real rock-solid gem but, unfortunately, doesn't support hibernation with more than 4GB RAM and also has drivers missing for my old laser printer and my ribbon photo printer but, hey, that's the usual crap that printer manufacturers love to pull because, OTHERWISE, PEOPLE WOULD HANG ON TO THEIR OLD, STILL FUNCTIONING, PRINTERS.

I HATE MS FOR REMOVING THE REPAIR INSTALL.
I dislike them for making SFC lazy and not even attempting to look on the optical media for replacement files.
I also want to confront them about their lies that there are still Search functions included in Windows. Just because you included a Search field for autistic folks to write their own script code in, simultaneously relying on the fact that they've already tagged the file (without mis-spelling the tag) or know which camera took the picture or how many bytes the file is, yet, somehow, by some bizarre miracle, after all that work, managing to lose said file somewhere on their machine! I ask you, how can one be so anal yet so incompetent? Thus, my logical conclusion, it's there for autistic folks, while the rest of us download third-party software which works instantly. I mean, have you ever tried to use it like a normal Search field? With ONE file in a folder, searching in that folder will set off the progress bar (which is of an negative exponential half-life kind and will NEVER reach 100%) and NOT find the ONE file which YOU ARE STARING AT RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU! Amazing, just incredible!!!!!!

 

[TrainableMan]

C:\Windows\system32\CatRoot2 is simply the download folder for Windows Updates. If your computer is way behind on updates and you have a slow internet connection it could easily take hours to catch up but it shouldn't be eating all your CPU.

If your computer was working fine and then started behaving this way where your CPUs are completely tied up, I would suspect a virus, and suggest you create a CD on another machine and burn Windows Defender Offline, then boot this machine with that CD.

And if you own an actual Windows 7 Installation DVD it does include a system repair option which you should try after the virus scan.

 

[dean]

New
"C:\Windows\system32\CatRoot2 is simply the download folder for Windows Updates. If your computer is way behind on updates and you have a slow internet connection it could easily take hours to catch up but it shouldn't be eating all your CPU."

A:
i) I know it is.
ii) No, it's not behind on updates. Never was. The only ones I ignore are optional ones like all the language packs and ones which I consider damaging: Bing desktop etc.
iii) I don't have a slow connection.
iv) It's not eating CPU or RAM. It's simply crippling everything by elevating whatever it is to a ridiculous priority, or it being a tug-of-war between two parts of the system vying for control over one area.

"If your computer was working fine and then started behaving this way where your CPUs are completely tied up, I would suspect a virus, and suggest you create a CD on another machine and burn Windows Defender Offline, then boot this machine with that CD."

A:
i) I state once more, my CPUs are hardly being used.
ii) Viruses are for idiots with ActiveX wide-open/enabled, no HIPS, no firewall and no brains when it comes to surfing "Ooh! you have viruses. Download this malw... umm... antivirus" "Ooh! you need a codec. Download this malw... umm media codec"; "Ooh! you need a troubleshooter for file X. Download this malw... umm... system tool". LOL. I don't even get adverts because I have so much security added to my browsers. Viruses are a fraud to sell suites like McAfee and Norton which, as far as I'm concerned, are worse than any malware. I DON'T DO MALWARE, not even rootkits [I even consider UEFI malware - though some sort of BIOS replacement WAS needed] I never allow resident AV to run as it's absolutely not necessary [I often have to fix other folks malware-ridden computers which have AV suites. Haha] and I'm what would have been called a Windows "power-user" - back when we had some power. On a side note, I always use Linux live media to access/fix a broken Win7 which can't boot.

"And if you own an actual Windows 7 Installation DVD it does include a system repair option which you should try after the virus scan."

A:
i) Of course I do. I'm the twat that bought it, not realising that, aside from any enhancements and limiting UAC, it was still a disguised version of WinME 2 aka Vista. Windows is finished now. I'll cling to 7 for a while but, once Linux gaming picks up that'll spell the end of Win for the any power-users. Incarnations of Win8 are simply a combination of idiot-ware + databasing/tracker-ware. No thanks.
ii) Yeah, that's what they called it... the liars. It's a System Restore invoker and, if you say no to that immediate suggestion, it'll make you wait 2hrs before telling you there's nothing wrong. Anyone who know, knows what I'm referrring to. Repair Install is gone - and don't believe those who say you can get around it with a Service Pack trick. Even if that worked, it would only work once and you have to be in Windows to even attempt it. Yeah... uhhh... if I can get into Windows, and it has some functionality, then it's not broken, is it? Genius, MS. Duh!

I know it seems ungrateful. Thanks for trying. I was simply trying to clear up that we need to step away from the obvious, which would be helpful for those new to computers or lacking in certain faculties [not simply lacking in tact, like me. Haha ;-P]

 

[dean]

Bedtime for me, now.
I'll try a few tricks I've found relating to WU/store corruption tomorrow but, whatever happens, I'll post the solution in this thread when I find one, for others experiencing similar situations.

 

[Shintaro]

You know I had a problem similar to you. The CPU was hardly doing anything and the RAM was hardly being used as well. But the disk was running flat-out.
I ran all kinds of checks AV/ Malware, disk surface utilities. NOTHING!
I ran procmon and process explorer, nothing jumped out.
Incredibly frustrating.

I gave up in the end, I needed a working laptop so I formatted the partition and re-installed Windows. Works fine now.

 

[Shintaro]

I was having a think about your problem and realised that resmon shows how much disk activity is being done per process.

So having said that THIS article might be of use.

 

[Shintaro]

Actually what you need to run is WPR (Windows Performance Recorder). see HERE.
If you run WPR then upload the file we can have a look.

 

[dean]

I'm back.
Sorry I didn't reply. It fixed itself and I have no idea how.
I'm back because it now broke itself again - with a little help from a company which shouldn't be in business: Adobe.
You know that little problem with graphics drivers that they have with their hardware acceleration option in Flashplayer? You know. I mean five years or so isn't very long so I wouldn't expect a fix by now. These things are difficult, you know. Especially when you shouldn't be in business. ****ARRRRRRRGGGHHHHHHHH****
Well, they enabled their setting after I disabled it, downed my machine and now...
Well, an hour isn't long for a log in - especially when you have an HDD to trash with constant thrashing. [It's not any of my programs thrashing it]
I'm not in yet but I'm getting the same crap: everyhting is hogged and I get the Microsoft Windows isn't responding, Ctrl+Alt+Del can't be invoked etc.
Again, the scum removed repair install so I'm ruined, as wellas making a lazy useless "can't be bothered to retrieve files from the optical media" SFC for the hipster times we live in.
I wish I never fell for this rebrand of Vista.
At least I still have the rock that is XP Pro X64 to post this with. Again, the one they buried in order to ship the crap that was Vista. [It's a bit silly to trash Vista now that they have excelled further with their Win8/8.1 retard-appeal data-miner.

 

[dean]

Actually what you need to run is WPR (Windows Performance Recorder). see HERE.
If you run WPR then upload the file we can have a look.

That's for Windows Hipster-Retard,-Put-Me-On-Your-Database-Officer,-I-Feel-Safer-Already not Windows We-Disguised-Vista-To-Trick-You-And-Screw-You-XP-Stalwarts-Over

 

[dean]

If they hadn't removed repair install we wouldn't constantly be having to put up with these disasterous issues.

 

[dean]

You know I had a problem similar to you. The CPU was hardly doing anything and the RAM was hardly being used as well. But the disk was running flat-out.
I ran all kinds of checks AV/ Malware, disk surface utilities. NOTHING!
I ran procmon and process explorer, nothing jumped out.
Incredibly frustrating.

I gave up in the end, I needed a working laptop so I formatted the partition and re-installed Windows. Works fine now.

I'm not doing it again. I've only been up for around four months this time (since the last time MS f'kd my machine up) and I've done that about EIGHT f'kn times in the FIVE years I've had this chewed-off and deposited half dog turd. I NEVER reformatted and reinstalled any XP installation in the THIRTEEN years until the end of support and beyond.

 

[Shintaro]

Yea, well XP will eventually have more holes in it than swiss cheese, and MS will not repair them, because it is end-of-life. So staying on XP will be more of a problem, well unless you are disconnected from the internet completely.

So you might as well "build a bridge" and "get over it" because regardless of what you think of the current OS's from MS they are going to move everyone forward, whether you like it or not.

WPR can record what is going on in your system, something that you cannot see at the moment due to the computer having problems.

The other approach is to download autoruns, which is a portable executable from sysinternals, boot to safe mode and start disabling things to find system stability.