Possible Hard Drive Failing

  • Thread starter Thread starter Sheldon
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Sheldon

Sometimes when logging in to Windows XP Pro, I get a
notification message in the bottom right toolbar telling
me: "Windows-delayed write failed....Windows was unable to
save all the data for the file D:\$mft. The data has been
lost. The error may be caused by a failure of your
computer hardware or network connection." The D: Drive
that it is referring to is my backup storage IDE drive.
The file $mft that it refers to is always the same. There
never seems to be any actual data loss of any kind. I can
write to the drive, read from it, etc., with no problems.
I have also recently reformatted the drive, but this error
still seems to occaisionly pop up every second day or so,
and I am not sure if it is telling me that my hard drive
is failing or not! Especially since I can use the hard
drive, write to it, etc. Can someone please tell me what
causes this type of error???
 
I have read about this happening to many people, so I don't think your drive
is failing. It seems to be a problem with Windows itself or some type of
hardware compatiblity. A possible solution is to check and see if you have
write caching enabled on your hard disk, and if so turn it off. Windows is
trying to update the master file table but for some reason it is failing to
do so. This can cause your data to become corrupted. To disable write
caching go to the device manager, expand the Disk Drives section and right
click your hard drive. Select properties, click the policies tab, and
uncheck the box labeled "Enable write caching on the disk". You should also
run chkdsk on each of your drive's partitions to make sure nothing has
become corrupt.

I have also read that it may occur if you are using a standard 40-wire IDE
cable on a drive that calls for an 80-wire cable and a BIOS setting is
forcing it to run at the faster speed than the older cable can support.
 
If I disable write caching, what are the disadvantages?
Does the drive work slower, or should it always be off?
 
Performance would be slower with it turned off, though I'm not sure if it
would be noticable, and it is safer because data is written to the disk
immediately rather than being held in a memory buffer and written at a later
time. I am not really certain that turning it off will solve the problem
you are having but it's something to try. First I would recommend checking
your IDE cable and make sure it is the correct type for your drive. If you
have an ATA66 or faster hard drive it should have an 80-wire cable. Normally
the drive will slow down to ATA33 transfer speeds if an older cable is used,
but I understand they can sometimes be forced to run at the faster speed. If
your cable is okay and turning off write caching does not solve the problem
just post again and hopefully someone will know of another solution.
 
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