Disk Write Error When Installing

[ExpertAmateur]

Hey, just picked this up from the Humble Bundle this morning. I tried installing it and it stops at 3.3 GB saying DISK WRITE ERROR. Any help?

[Nevander]

How big is your hard drive/SSD? There should be plenty of free space for it to move files around in. If there's enough space, then I'm at a loss. I'd just try to delete the local game content if any was completed and try again.

[Sirius]

Run a disk check. You may have a few corrupted sectors on your HDD.
Don't panic, it's usually nothing major, but you may have reached a few corrupted blocks, it's not uncommon.

Running a check on the HDD will likely quarantine a few blocks or maybe just correct a file system issue.

From the Steam Support page:

Solutions
The first step is to verify that your hard drive is in good health and that all bad sectors have been marked as such by the drive.

To do so on Windows:

Click Start > (My) Computer

Locate the hard drive Steam is installed on. By default, this is C:

Right-click this drive and select Properties.

Click the Tools tab.

In the Error-checking category, click Check now...

In the dialog that appears, check "Automatically fix file system errors" and "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors."

Click Start.

If you are scanning the C: drive, you will be asked to schedule the disk check the next time you start Windows. Accept, restart your computer, and allow the disk check to start—do not press any keys to skip the disk check.

Allow the disk check to complete. This process may take up to several hours, depending on the size of your hard drive and the number of errors.

Edit:
In case Steam acts up / doesn't run after the check:

Locate your Steam folder

Delete everything except:
- the Steam.exe
- the "Steamapps" folder (your games)
- the "Userdata" folder (some savegames and such)

Then execute the Steam.exe, it will re-download the needed Steam files.
You may have to rearrange your Steam windows like friendlist and such, but you will not have to reinstall games etc.

Do only do this in case Steam doesn't work after the drive check!

Follow those steps exactly, I will not be responsible if you mess it up and loose crucial data, need to reinstall your games or loose your save games.

[ExpertAmateur]

Originally posted by Nevander:

How big is your hard drive/SSD? There should be plenty of free space for it to move files around in. If there's enough space, then I'm at a loss. I'd just try to delete the local game content if any was completed and try again.

1Tb. There's 137 GB free. I already tried deleting and reinstalling the title.

[ExpertAmateur]

Originally posted by |x|SiriuS|x|:

Run a disk check. You may have a few corrupted sectors on your HDD.
Don't panic, it's usually nothing major, but you may have reached a few corrupted blocks, it's not uncommon.

Running a check on the HDD will likely quarantine a few blocks or maybe just correct a file system issue.

From the Steam Support page:

Solutions
The first step is to verify that your hard drive is in good health and that all bad sectors have been marked as such by the drive.

To do so on Windows:

Click Start > (My) Computer

Locate the hard drive Steam is installed on. By default, this is C:

Right-click this drive and select Properties.

Click the Tools tab.

In the Error-checking category, click Check now...

In the dialog that appears, check "Automatically fix file system errors" and "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors."

Click Start.

If you are scanning the C: drive, you will be asked to schedule the disk check the next time you start Windows. Accept, restart your computer, and allow the disk check to start—do not press any keys to skip the disk check.

Allow the disk check to complete. This process may take up to several hours, depending on the size of your hard drive and the number of errors.

Edit:
In case Steam acts up / doesn't run after the check:

Locate your Steam folder

Delete everything except:
- the Steam.exe
- the "Steamapps" folder (your games)
- the "Userdata" folder (some savegames and such)

Then execute the Steam.exe, it will re-download the needed Steam files.
You may have to rearrange your Steam windows like friendlist and such, but you will not have to reinstall games etc.

Do only do this in case Steam doesn't work after the drive check!

Follow those steps exactly, I will not be responsible if you mess it up and loose crucial data, need to reinstall your games or loose your save games.

I found that article last night and ran it through the night -- says no errors were found. It's a USB 1TB external hard drive. Brand is Toshiba, but that shouldn't matter.

[ExpertAmateur]

Bump.

[Ocsabat]

Have you tried installing it on your local hard drive? The problem could be something to do with trying to install it on a USB drive.

It's likely that at some point during the install there is a break in writing to the disk where the process is just working in memory and the USB port or the disk goes idle and powers down. When the install process goes to access the disk again, the disk takes too long to respond and the install errors out.

USB disk drives are generally not a good place to install your games. They perform much slower than a disk drive on SDD.

[ExpertAmateur]

Originally posted by Ocsabat:

Have you tried installing it on your local hard drive? The problem could be something to do with trying to install it on a USB drive.

It's likely that at some point during the install there is a break in writing to the disk where the process is just working in memory and the USB port or the disk goes idle and powers down. When the install process goes to access the disk again, the disk takes too long to respond and the install errors out.

USB disk drives are generally not a good place to install your games. They perform much slower than a disk drive on SDD.

My rig is currently a laptop, and all of my games are on that drive.

[Ocsabat]

Maybe there is an option in your laptop's power settings to prevent external devices from sleeping or to extend the time it takes before powering down. My laptop is dead so I can't poke around in it's power options to see if there is.

Try the install process again and keep an eye on the disk to see if it is powering down during install. If it is powering down then prod it by accessing the disk when it does.

[ExpertAmateur]

Originally posted by Ocsabat:

Maybe there is an option in your laptop's power settings to prevent external devices from sleeping or to extend the time it takes before powering down. My laptop is dead so I can't poke around in it's power options to see if there is.

Try the install process again and keep an eye on the disk to see if it is powering down during install. If it is powering down then prod it by accessing the disk when it does.

Every other game installs fine.

[Ocsabat]

This isn't those games though. There's always that stubborn PITA when it comes to PC games.

Try installing another game, if you have one that's not installed, which requires as much or more disk space than Borderlands and see if it it has the same problem.

[ExpertAmateur]

Bump

[Ocsabat]

Have you tried installing another game to determine whether or not the problem is unique to Borderlands?

[ExpertAmateur]

Originally posted by Ocsabat:

Have you tried installing another game to determine whether or not the problem is unique to Borderlands?

Yes, several games have updated automatically with no issues.