Windows 8 hard disk usage 100%

It sounds similar to a problem I'm having with my Windows 8.1 machine. I have similar symptoms. I have tracked the problem down to the "Network List Service". It seems to generate 4 x 2Gb files in the c:\Windows\System32\Networklist\Icons folder. I think the files are supposed to be icons. Check if you have 4 x 2Gb files named something ending _16.bin, _24.bin, _32.bin and _48.bin. Every reboot these files are deleted and then recreated on my machine which causes the 100% disk usage and inability to use the machine for 15-20 minutes. Once all 4 files have been recreated my machine starts working...but that takes 15-20 minutes. I'm afraid I have not found a solution yet but I wonder if you have the same problem.

It sounds like an issue I have seen on multiple systems in the past/recent present.

The key things that I see here are the clicking noise, in addition to the enormous latency.

From what I can "Smell" it seems like the heads on the drive are sticking, or have come loose.

CHKDSK is a great tool that can be used to check for bad sectors and errors with the platters on the drive, but if the drive reads the information consistently, no matter how slow it is getting the information, as far as CHKDSK is concerned, your drive is still good.

Sounds like a bad hard drive to me.

I would take another drive, run CloneZilla or Ghost, and see how fast it runs after that.