Repeated Disk Write Error

[Chad King]

Whenever I download or update a game I keep getting "disk write error", I can eventually download the game if I keep pressing retry now repeatedly, but I get another one every gig or two

[ShelLuser]

Time to check the integrity of your hardware...

[Crazy Tiger]

Yep, a disk check might be in order. Though it could also be your anti-virus interfering. Have you whitelisted the Steam and then especially the steamapps folder in the anti-virus?

[crunchyfrog]

Classic sign of a possible disc failure.

You should indeed both do an intensive disk scan (not using windows but something better). It will take a few hours most likely, but if it spots anything untoward, get the data off there ASAP!

And buy a new drive.

However, if you're getting close to the limit of your space this can also happen if your downladed game might JUST fit.

You should NEVER run your hard drive more than 90% full for Steam. And any downloaded game should have up to THREE TIMES the total file size allocated.

So if you have a 1 TB drive, and you've used 800GB, then that's 80% and you are OK. But if you want to download a 50GB you likely won't have enough, and it may cause Steam issues.

[Satoru]

If you're lucky
1) its your anti-virus screwing up the downloads. Ensure you add whitlisting so your AV doesn't kill/quarantine/etc your downloads
2) it also could be a permissions issue. Try running steam as an administrator

Otherwise
3) if its your drive, you should see events in your event viewer about SMART errors, though tbh this may not be the case as generally the drive will outright DIE before you get enough SMART errors where it makes a difference

I'd probably wager its your anti-virus or a permissions problem. But to be safe you might want to move any valueable document or files to an external drive in case the drive is actaully failing

[Chad King]

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

Classic sign of a possible disc failure.

You should indeed both do an intensive disk scan (not using windows but something better). It will take a few hours most likely, but if it spots anything untoward, get the data off there ASAP!

And buy a new drive.

However, if you're getting close to the limit of your space this can also happen if your downladed game might JUST fit.

You should NEVER run your hard drive more than 90% full for Steam. And any downloaded game should have up to THREE TIMES the total file size allocated.

So if you have a 1 TB drive, and you've used 800GB, then that's 80% and you are OK. But if you want to download a 50GB you likely won't have enough, and it may cause Steam issues.

Okay Thanks, how would I do a disk scan?

[Satoru]

Originally posted by Chad King:

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

Classic sign of a possible disc failure.

You should indeed both do an intensive disk scan (not using windows but something better). It will take a few hours most likely, but if it spots anything untoward, get the data off there ASAP!

And buy a new drive.

However, if you're getting close to the limit of your space this can also happen if your downladed game might JUST fit.

You should NEVER run your hard drive more than 90% full for Steam. And any downloaded game should have up to THREE TIMES the total file size allocated.

So if you have a 1 TB drive, and you've used 800GB, then that's 80% and you are OK. But if you want to download a 50GB you likely won't have enough, and it may cause Steam issues.

Okay Thanks, how would I do a disk scan?

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/0/3203747342904222786/#c3203747342905260189

Note I recommend adding whitelisting to your anti-virus and running steam as an administrator first

[crunchyfrog]

Originally posted by Chad King:

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

Classic sign of a possible disc failure.

You should indeed both do an intensive disk scan (not using windows but something better). It will take a few hours most likely, but if it spots anything untoward, get the data off there ASAP!

And buy a new drive.

However, if you're getting close to the limit of your space this can also happen if your downladed game might JUST fit.

You should NEVER run your hard drive more than 90% full for Steam. And any downloaded game should have up to THREE TIMES the total file size allocated.

So if you have a 1 TB drive, and you've used 800GB, then that's 80% and you are OK. But if you want to download a 50GB you likely won't have enough, and it may cause Steam issues.

Okay Thanks, how would I do a disk scan?

I'd do what Satoru suggests first, frankly.

See how you get on.

[RiO]

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

Originally posted by Chad King:

Okay Thanks, how would I do a disk scan?

I'd do what Satoru suggests first, frankly.

See how you get on.

I would recommend that first and foremost OP takes a backup of any important files left on the drive. If the problem is a failing drive, then any amount of undue stress placed on it may push the drive over the brink and cause it to fail completely out-of-the-blue, dependent on what the actual defect is. Mechanical failure can be a nasty thing like that.

1. Ensure you have backups
   
2. No really: ENSURE YOU HAVE BACKUPS !! -- NOW!
   
3. Then check the SMART status of your drive to see if it is still healthy or not.* This is a fast check and if it's bad, then you'll know it's time to replace the drive.
   
4. Then try to fiddle with settings to see if this is a problem with e.g. over-aggressive antivirus software.
   
5. And if that doesn't change anything, then look into running a more thorough disk integrity check, like a full sector scan. You want this as a last resort as this type of check is very intense on the drive and can be what pushes a bad, failing drive over the brink into a total loss.

*) You can easily get the relevant SMART statistics in a human-readable format via PowerShell these days. Start a powershell prompt with admin permissions and run:

Get-Disk | Get-StorageReliabilityCounter | Select-Object -Property "*"

This will grab all disks in the system; grab the SMART stats for each of those disks; and then render line by line all the individual SMART stats with human-readable names.

The properties you're looking for are ReadErrorsCorrected; ReadErrorsUncorrected; ReadErrorsTotal; WriteErrorsCorrected; WriteErrorsUncorrected; and WriteErrorsTotal. If any of those has a non-blank numeric value and it is not zero, then you know you have a drive that is beginning to fail.

If they are blank, that can either mean the drive isn't reporting the data at all, or it returns a blank value instead of a numeric zero. In which case you cannot know for sure that the drive is not failing. If the drive reports numeric zero for all six properties, you can still not know 100% sure whether it is failing or not, because not all kinds of failure are covered by these properties. (And some drives just don't implement them properly at all and always return zero for them. Yes really. Firmware programmers are idiots some times.)

This can strictly be used as an early warning indicator that a drive is failing.
It can never be a guarantee that it isn't failing.

[°| iByTech |°]

Ty

[GraveNoX]

The solution is START STEAM.EXE AS ADMINISTRATOR.
It has NOTHING to do with the HARD DRIVE.

[crunchyfrog]

Originally posted by GraveNoX:

The solution is START STEAM.EXE AS ADMINISTRATOR.
It has NOTHING to do with the HARD DRIVE.

You cannot say that with certainty.

While it is a sussgestion, please don't assert illogical claims.

[RiO]

Originally posted by GraveNoX:

The solution is START STEAM.EXE AS ADMINISTRATOR.
It has NOTHING to do with the HARD DRIVE.

You should never need to launch the Steam client as administrator for anything. For installation purposes, the Steam client makes use of a Windows service called the "Steam Client Service" which runs with higher permissions than a normal user to assist with installation work. (It runs under the SYSTEM account actually, which is about as high on the pecking order as you can go. Higher than normal administrator accounts.)

[null]

Originally posted by ShelLuser:

Time to check the integrity of your hardware...

не надо такое писать

[namdog]

I'm getting this too on every title. This also happens regardless of which drive I save to. I can run Steam as Admin with no change in results. Other platforms work just fine. I can install Microsoft products, Rockstar titles, Epic, etc from their platforms to these disks with no issues. I've also completely reimaged my system performing diskpart and doing all kinds of disk and RAM checks. No errors on any kind... At this point, it has to be on Steam's end.

[Satoru]

Originally posted by RiO:

Originally posted by GraveNoX:

The solution is START STEAM.EXE AS ADMINISTRATOR.
It has NOTHING to do with the HARD DRIVE.

You should never need to launch the Steam client as administrator for anything. For installation purposes, the Steam client makes use of a Windows service called the "Steam Client Service" which runs with higher permissions than a normal user to assist with installation work. (It runs under the SYSTEM account actually, which is about as high on the pecking order as you can go. Higher than normal administrator accounts.)

Yea in your fantasy land where programs don’t mess with file permissions, where OneDrive doesn’t decide to screw things up, then yes I too would love to live in this imaginary world

Since I live in the real world, yes somehow permissions can get messed up for whatever reason. And the easiest fix for that is to run steam as an admin to fix those problems

Like sure if you want to be pedantic and not actually help people sure go ahead and tell them not to run steam as an administrator as a troubleshooting step that will 50% of the time resolve their issue