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Going nuts over "Delayed Write Failed" error in Windows XP

Antoneo

Diamond Member
This has been an ongoing problem and perhaps I'm not the only one. I have posted various other similar problems with my setup/hard drives and whenever I think I got one problem down, another or the same one crops right back up. I'm going to use this thread to keep track of what I did and perhaps it'll help out someone else with similar problems or someone will help me. And yes I have used the search function.

Here's the hardware setup:
EPoX 4g4a+ (BIOS v???)
P4 1.6@2.1GHz
512MB PC2700 DDR RAM
PSU Antec TruPower 330 Watt

ATI R8500
Santa Cruz

Primary IDE: 1 Seagate Cuda IV 80GB
Secondary IDE: 1 Liteon CDRW drive
Integrated Highpoint IDE RAID controller (BIOS v2.351): 4 Seagate Cuda V 200GB
System stress tested under Prime95 for a couple of hours with no errors. +12V rails aren't too bad (avg +11.86 off MBM, trying to get hold of multimeter)

File system on all drives is NTFS.

The "Delayed Write Failed" has ONLY occured while eMule is running. I run eMule for weeks at a time mainly because the foreign television shows I am trying to get are rare and takes quite a while to get a single episode (US satellite/cable doesn't carry the programs last time I checked). There are about 80 queued files at any single point in time and about 10-20 of them are downloading onto the drive with problems.

The only program writing to the particular drive is eMule, and the files that are not being successfully written to are eMule files. I am not transferring large files when the error occurs. Plus, the error only occurs when I'm not at the computer, say early in the morning or so during no user activity.

The error is not a common occurance. Today is the second time it has happened in just under a month. What bothers me is that, why should it occur "sometimes" when I have the damn program running all of the time? Not to mention explorer.exe takes a dump on me every few days or so. That I can take, I'm used to it. But if this were a faulty hard drive, I should have more acute problems. If it were a faulty controller or bad cable, the problem should be chronic. I can't even turn off write caching because it's greyed out.

The error has not been observed on any of the other drives, but then again, I don't run eMule or any active disk use programs on the others.

No strange metallic clanging, grinding sounds either while running the system. SMART doesn't report anything.

OLD UPDATE: I just got the error while using the computer with eMule running in the background. Several times in one day is not good. I turned eMule off, but perhaps I should try transferring large files and see if that can reproduce the problem. Oh boy, I just saw a balloon saying something like: Error writing to E:\$MFt. Not good.

CURRENT UPDATE: I installed my PROMISE 133TX2 controller and while there haven't been any error messages relating to "Delayed Write Failed" I have other problems.

1) An error is logged in Event viewer:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Service Control Manager
Event Category: None
Event ID: 7026
Date: 11/03/04
Time: 9:23:51 PM
User: N/A
Computer:
Description:
The following boot-start or system-start driver(s) failed to load:
hptpro

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

How do I get rid of this?

Also, the after the installation of the PROMISE card, I get stuttering during playback of mp3s. I didn't move around any PCI cards....


Here's what I have done already:
1) Windows XP with SP2 reformat (I got the error (several times) before on a SP1 install)
2) Highpoint Controller BIOS update
3) Ran Seagate SeaTools quick diagnostics and no errors (on any of my drives)
4) Ran CDHKDSK /f /r, checked in the windows XP log and 0 (zero) bad sectors. Didn't pick up anything unusual.

 
I was getting the same thing over the weekend on my laptop hard drive in a external enclosure. I popped the drive into my lapotp and ran some tests of the Ultimate boot cd. The drive had an I/O error. I wrote zeros but that did'nt help. I'm just going to RMA the drive.
 
Check this for me...

Control Panel->System->Advanced Tab->Performance Options: Make sure that you are set to Application and not system cache. I was on a Win2k box at the time of posting so some of my wording may be a little different.
 
Originally posted by: aug1516
Check this for me...

Control Panel->System->Advanced Tab->Performance Options: Make sure that you are set to Application and not system cache. I was on a Win2k box at the time of posting so some of my wording may be a little different.
Yeah, I checked for that earlier this morning and it was set to Application (Programs) and not system cache.

After some work and then homework, and after studying, I'll get back to it.
 
Originally posted by: Viper96720
try chkdsk /r
I used chkdsk /f /r (I think /f implies /r), nothing seemed to have been found. Here's the report from the log:

Event Type: Information
Event Source: Winlogon
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1001
Date: 11/01/04
Time: 1:09:16 PM
User: N/A
Computer:
Description:
Checking file system on E:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is Storage.

A disk check has been scheduled.
Windows will now check the disk.
Cleaning up 2 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 2 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 2 unused security descriptors.
CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)...
File data verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying free space (stage 5 of 5)...
Free space verification is complete.

195358400 KB total disk space.
192085432 KB in 823 files.
632 KB in 79 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
73588 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
3198748 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
48839600 total allocation units on disk.
799687 allocation units available on disk.

Internal Info:
6f 06 00 00 91 03 00 00 88 06 00 00 00 00 00 00 o...............
8f 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 26 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........&.......
00 b2 92 00 00 00 00 00 00 89 d0 01 00 00 00 00 ................
70 c3 44 00 00 00 00 00 d0 87 9e 11 09 00 00 00 p.D.............
c0 c9 fe 39 00 00 00 00 70 de 82 55 09 00 00 00 ...9....p..U....
99 9e 36 00 00 00 00 00 d8 3d 07 00 37 03 00 00 ..6......=..7...
00 00 00 00 00 e0 f6 cb 2d 00 00 00 4f 00 00 00 ........-...O...


For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
 
Originally posted by: sharkeeper
Replace your motherboard. There is a problem with the HPT controller.

Cheers!
Wait, how do you know this? I would love to upgrade, I mean fix the problem, but I'm a poor college student and this thing has been doing ok except for this. Replacing the motherboard is a last resort option and it's just too early to throw that card on the table IMO. 🙂

 
You could stop using the HPT controller and the problem *may* go away...

How valuable is your data?

To me, it isn't worth the risk. Any hardware that acts up like that goes to the circular filing cabinet.

Cheers!
 
Sharkeeper, are you the CRT/LCD guru? Your handle pops out at me. Something about Cornerstone...

Ah, I thought you had heard official reports of a known problem with the HPT controller on my particular motherboard. Well, on my solution manual was to move the drives over to a PCI PROMISE controller I have lying around somewhere (from a computer whose hard drive died no less) so that was going to happen anyway.

I'll update this thread for my entertainment.
 
You are thinking about GOSHARKS. Must be the shark thing. 🙂

There was a high defect count in HPT 370/372 controllers on ABIT boards a while ago that did EXACTLY what you describe and a board change was the quick fix that solved the problem.

Some worked OK but would fail with other drive (brands).

I dunno, my experience with Highpoint has left a bad taste in my mouth reminiscent of a cricket that I ate during a hazing contest many years ago. They are a bottom feeder of controller but still!

Promise is much better IMO.

Of course I am a SCSI aficionado but realise that SCSI isn't suitable for every application.

Cheers!
 
Bump, I have a different problem now...

"The following boot-start or system-start driver(s) failed to load:
hptpro "

Also, I get fractional stutter while listening to mp3s on any player, especially when I open a new link or scroll up or down. My sound drivers are up to date.
 
Originally posted by: PumpActionWalrus
Yeah, it is the controller, I had a system similar to yours, same mb in the shop this week, bad controller.

You mean the Highpoint right?
 
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