$Mft corrupt

[Daniel Friedmann]

Hello,

yesterday I got many, many error popups during startup
when the desktop showed up:

{Delayed Write Failed}
Windows was unable to save all the data for the file x.
The data has been lost.
This error may be caused by a failure of your computer
hardware or network connection. Please try to save this
file elsewhere.

Instead of "files x" quite often "x:\$Mft" appeared as
well as various other folders and files from all over my
partitions of my two hard disks.

I read some articles in the KB but both hdds have already
disabled write cache since the first installation of XP.

Others suggested to change the hdds but neither SMART nor
any other tool like SiSoftware SANDRA show any hdd errors.

I'm using XP Pro US with SP1 plus latest updates on a AMD
Athlon XP 2400+ with 512 MB RAM and two Maxtor hdds
(UDMA100 with 80 GB and UDMA133 with 120 GB).

Please, help me! I fear losing a complete XP installation
with a few dozen GB of data. Reinstallation will take
several days but that's nothing compared to an actual
loss of valuable data. Any help is very appreciated.

Regards
Daniel

 

[Tritium]

Hello,

yesterday I got many, many error popups during startup
when the desktop showed up:

{Delayed Write Failed}
Windows was unable to save all the data for the file x.
The data has been lost.
This error may be caused by a failure of your computer
hardware or network connection. Please try to save this
file elsewhere.

Instead of "files x" quite often "x:\$Mft" appeared as
well as various other folders and files from all over my
partitions of my two hard disks.

I read some articles in the KB but both hdds have already
disabled write cache since the first installation of XP.

Others suggested to change the hdds but neither SMART nor
any other tool like SiSoftware SANDRA show any hdd errors.

I'm using XP Pro US with SP1 plus latest updates on a AMD
Athlon XP 2400+ with 512 MB RAM and two Maxtor hdds
(UDMA100 with 80 GB and UDMA133 with 120 GB).

Please, help me! I fear losing a complete XP installation
with a few dozen GB of data. Reinstallation will take
several days but that's nothing compared to an actual
loss of valuable data. Any help is very appreciated.

Regards
Daniel

Back up the data before a disaster happens. In the meantime,
as this is an Athlon system with "soft" settings for the CPU
speed, verify that the computer is not being accidentally
over-clocked and that the proper CPU multiplier ratio and
FSB speeds are being used. (The HD symptoms are typical of
some Intel systems being over-clocked.)

 

[davetest]

Hello,

yesterday I got many, many error popups during startup
when the desktop showed up:

{Delayed Write Failed}
Windows was unable to save all the data for the file x.
The data has been lost.
This error may be caused by a failure of your computer
hardware or network connection. Please try to save this
file elsewhere.

Instead of "files x" quite often "x:\$Mft" appeared as
well as various other folders and files from all over my
partitions of my two hard disks.

I read some articles in the KB but both hdds have already
disabled write cache since the first installation of XP.

Others suggested to change the hdds but neither SMART nor
any other tool like SiSoftware SANDRA show any hdd errors.

I'm using XP Pro US with SP1 plus latest updates on a AMD
Athlon XP 2400+ with 512 MB RAM and two Maxtor hdds
(UDMA100 with 80 GB and UDMA133 with 120 GB).

Please, help me! I fear losing a complete XP installation
with a few dozen GB of data. Reinstallation will take
several days but that's nothing compared to an actual
loss of valuable data. Any help is very appreciated.

Regards
Daniel

I had this problem once and I had to use a repair
install to recover XP.
If you're able to get to the recovery console, try running
chkdsk /r. If your motherboard uses a VIA chipset, try installing
the IDE filter driver. If your board uses another chipset,
check whether there's an equivalent.
Dave

 

[Sam]

Sometime on, or about Sat, 1 May 2004 14:02:58 -0700, Daniel Friedmann
scribbled:

Hello,

yesterday I got many, many error popups during startup
when the desktop showed up:

{Delayed Write Failed}
Windows was unable to save all the data for the file x.
The data has been lost.
This error may be caused by a failure of your computer
hardware or network connection. Please try to save this
file elsewhere.

Instead of "files x" quite often "x:\$Mft" appeared as
well as various other folders and files from all over my
partitions of my two hard disks.

I read some articles in the KB but both hdds have already
disabled write cache since the first installation of XP.

Others suggested to change the hdds but neither SMART nor
any other tool like SiSoftware SANDRA show any hdd errors.

I'm using XP Pro US with SP1 plus latest updates on a AMD
Athlon XP 2400+ with 512 MB RAM and two Maxtor hdds
(UDMA100 with 80 GB and UDMA133 with 120 GB).

Please, help me! I fear losing a complete XP installation
with a few dozen GB of data. Reinstallation will take
several days but that's nothing compared to an actual
loss of valuable data. Any help is very appreciated.

Regards
Daniel

I had this same problem once before and it recurred even after doing a
complete re-partition/format and reinstall. It was a bad hard-drive. So,
just in case, do a complete backup ASAP. It couldn't hurt.

Sam

 

[Alex Nichol]

yesterday I got many, many error popups during startup
when the desktop showed up:

{Delayed Write Failed}
Windows was unable to save all the data for the file x.
The data has been lost.
This error may be caused by a failure of your computer
hardware or network connection. Please try to save this
file elsewhere.

As Sam says - it may be a hard drive on the point of failing. Meanwhile
it would be as well to turn off the 'write caching' on the drive - In
Device manager, double click on the drive and uncheck it on the Policies
page'. Better sacrifice a small amount of performance than to take
risks

 

[Al Dykes]

As Sam says - it may be a hard drive on the point of failing. Meanwhile
it would be as well to turn off the 'write caching' on the drive - In
Device manager, double click on the drive and uncheck it on the Policies
page'. Better sacrifice a small amount of performance than to take
risks

If there are important files on this disk I would stop using the
system right now. Put the disk into a PC running the same OS as a
secondary disk and copy all your data files off. Don't bother with the
operating system.

Once you've done this you can reformat the disk and excercise
it in the second machine. If it seems Ok put it back
into your PC and do a fresh installation, then copy your
data back, somehow.

 

[Sam]

Sometime on, or about 2 May 2004 09:30:09 -0400, Al Dykes scribbled:

If there are important files on this disk I would stop using the
system right now. Put the disk into a PC running the same OS as a
secondary disk and copy all your data files off. Don't bother with the
operating system.

Once you've done this you can reformat the disk and excercise
it in the second machine. If it seems Ok put it back
into your PC and do a fresh installation, then copy your
data back, somehow.

As an addendum, sometimes there are *.ini or *.cfg files in the Windows
folder that the user may want to preserve. They often have software
settings that can be nice to keep.

Sam