Delayed Write Failed

[Guest]

I’ve got a brand new Gateway GX7022E which contains a 320 GB SATA Western
Digital Drive. I’m running XP Media Center with all of the latest SP’s and
patches installed. I’ve had the computer crash three times in the last two
months due to a “Windows Delayed Write Failed†error. After the first error
appears, the drive light stays on and I begin to receive more of these errors
for every file the OS tries to write. I cannot shut the pc down because
Windows is unable to write any of its files. Finally I must power down the
pc. Once I get this error, the hard drive seems to be completely corrupt.
When I try to reboot, I get the dreaded “missing OS†or missing “ntldr†file
error. At this point, I do a complete restore and everything seems to work
fine, for a while. I’ve had Gateway replace the drive, thinking that it
might be the problem. It continues to happen with the new drive also.

After looking on the Internet, I’ve found that many people are having these
“Delayed Write Failed†issues. Most of them are due to USB drives or
Networking issues. My issue does not fit into either of those categories.
There are several Microsoft KB issues that address similar problems, but not
clear cut solutions.

Any help would be appreciated…

 

[Jone Doe]

Simple answer. It must be under warranty, so take it back and make them
either fix, or replace it. You should not have to put up with such things
on a fairly new computer.

 

[Guest]

I am leaning toward having them try to fix it. The down side is that I have
to send it back and will potentially be without a computer for quite some
time. I guess I'm just trying to understand what hardware might be causing
this problem so that I might research a new driver or somthing before I punt.

 

[R. McCarty]

Which Chipset does this new Gateway have on it ? - It sounds like an
issue with the drivers. If it's an Intel based computer, I would install the
latest Intel Chipset driver for your motherboard. This could also be an
issue with the Power Protect mode (Caching) of the controller/drive. I
would also check the drive's Thermal state. These new drives can &
do generate a lot of heat. I still use Everest Home Edition 1.51 to check
my SATA drives A/B platters for temp. There are other monitoring
tools you can download to check the heat sensors on the MB/Drives.

 

[Guest]

You have a lot of good suggestions here. One that I am particularly
interested in is the "Power Protect mode (Caching) of the controller/drive."
Could you elaborate more on what this could mean, and what can be checked to
determine if there is a problem in this area? Does this have anything to do
with "power saving" features built into Windows? This is the first PC that
I've let use the "Stand-by" feature for power savings, and I'm not confident
that it truly works correctly.

Thanks for the info.

 

[R. McCarty]

It's an additional setting that controls how XP/2000 handles write
behind caching. It's a totally separate function from Power Savings
types of functions. What it basically means is if your system has a
UPS (Universal Power Supply), then the risk of data loss with a
Write cache is lowered. The UPS would prevent abrupt power off
and allow the Write Behind Cache to conclude it's transactions.
Power Protect is a optional setting (+P using DskCache) that turns
on this additional caching feature.

The following article might help explain it a bit:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;811392

I doubt that Standby or any Sleep state is a contributing factor in
your problem. Besides a Temp check, I would use a benchmark
tool to determine the speeds/performance of your SATA drives.
This is a simple/easy tool that I use (DiskSpeed32)
http://www.geocities.com/vgrinenko/DiskSpeed32/

 

[Guest]

Great. I will get on these immediately.

Couple more questions...
If I determine that the temperature of my drive is too high, why would this
cause delayed write failures? Does the drive intermittently fail when it
overheats?

What type of data should I look for to determine if I have a drive
speed/performance issue? Would my drive be performing too slow or too fast
and what do I compare my actual values to determine if there is a problem?

Sorry about all of the questions, but I think these sound like very possible
issues that can be causing my problem.

 

[R. McCarty]

First, you need to go to the Drive vendor's website and locate the
technical Specifications for your model. That sheet (.Pdf (Reader))
will have the operating temperature range. You're interested in the
upper threshold value. Most recent SATA drives have a maximum
rating of 55-C or 131-F. On average, a SATA drive with normal
air-flow will run around 93-106-F.

The reason I wanted you to run Benchmarks, was to verify the drive
is performing as you would expect. ( help to verify drivers).

I still believe it is probably a Chipset or Mass storage controller

Good Luck - It's unfortunate you have to expend time & effort on a
new PC.