This is problem I have repeatedly on several different computers and version of linux (mostly ubuntu, now 16.04 LTS). I clearly hear HDD is doing something, and also see the HDD LED shining. But I cannot see what process is responsible by any tools.
E.g. I tried those tool htop
and iotop
:
How do I find out what processes are accessing the hard disk in a GNU/Linux-based system?
htop
I have to runsudo htop
otherwise it says I have no permission to see DISK I/O stats ( WHY ? why is disk I/O more protected than MEM or CPU ? ). Still withsudo
it shows no disk activity at all, but I clearly hear disk working and LED shining (and computer lagging)iotop
always freeze and it start to react only after the disk activity ended
iotop
as root? It's my program of choice, and haven't had issues with it, so would be nice to know a bit of elaboration on how exactly it doesn't work for you :)iotop
did not execute until the disk activity endend (several minutes)