Stuck on allocating disk space

[Preference]

Hello there,

This problem first occured to me a few weeks back on spec ops: the line. I purchased it during the steam sales but for some reason it would not get passed the allocating phase (I waited for more then 3 hours). I tried several things like deleting all but the client.exe and steamapps and for some reason it started downloading for like 10 seconds untill it said my disk was too busy, eventho windows said it wasnt doing a damn thing. After trying several things like deleting virus scanners etc I decided to refund the game because for some reason other games could be installed.

Now I stumbled upon the problem again, but now with Cities: Skylines and I really want to play this game.

Anyone has a damn clue on what this could be?

If you need any information, just ask me.

Specs:

OS: Windows 7
CPU: i7 3770k
GPU: AMD r9 280x royalqueen
RAM: 8gb Gskill RipjawsX
SSD: Intel 510 60gb
HDD: WDC Black 1 TB with SATA3 - wd1002faex
MOBO: Asus Z77 Sabertooth
Powersupply: 750 watt - no clue what brand anymore.

Edit 1: Installing does not work on both the SSD & HDD.

Edit 2: Screenshots from task manager during allocating disk space.

http://nl.tinypic.com/r/2a7iw5d/8
http://nl.tinypic.com/r/29e3t7b/8
http://nl.tinypic.com/r/cp4z6/8
http://nl.tinypic.com/r/2lmxhs1/8

[PLANTROON]

(First thing that crossed my mind was a faulty harddrive. But that's unlikely.)
Try temporarily disabling your antivirus or any other protection software on your PC.

[Preference]

Originally posted by PLANTROON:

(First thing that crossed my mind was a faulty harddrive. But that's unlikely.)
Try temporarily disabling your antivirus or any other protection software on your PC.

That's what the solution at steam says as well. But it's my main storage drive and everything else works perfectly, so that's a bit weird.

Already disabled my antivirus, even deleted it as a whole from my PC but no luck so far.

Thanks for thinking along though ;)

[_I_]

try chkdsk

http://www.computerstepbystep.com/windows-7-chkdsk.html

[PLANTROON]

Originally posted by Preference:

Originally posted by PLANTROON:

(First thing that crossed my mind was a faulty harddrive. But that's unlikely.)
Try temporarily disabling your antivirus or any other protection software on your PC.

That's what the solution at steam says as well. But it's my main storage drive and everything else works perfectly, so that's a bit weird.

Already disabled my antivirus, even deleted it as a whole from my PC but no luck so far.

Thanks for thinking along though ;)

Well, try installing your game and post a screenshot of Details tab in Task manager ordered by CPU usage (a better thing would be HDD usage on Windows 8+)

[Preference]

Originally posted by _I_:

try chkdsk

http://www.computerstepbystep.com/windows-7-chkdsk.html

Thanks, Im gonna do that in 30 minutes. Will leave it running while sleeping as it is going to take a while. But I doubt it's my HDD as it wont install on my SSD as well...

[PLANTROON]

Another idea:
Does it occur in specific games or upon every game install?
Try disabling Steam Cloud (Steam - Settings - Cloud - Enable Ste......)

[Preference]

Originally posted by PLANTROON:

Originally posted by Preference:

That's what the solution at steam says as well. But it's my main storage drive and everything else works perfectly, so that's a bit weird.

Already disabled my antivirus, even deleted it as a whole from my PC but no luck so far.

Thanks for thinking along though ;)

Well, try installing your game and post a screenshot of Details tab in Task manager ordered by CPU usage (a better thing would be HDD usage on Windows 8+)

Well, what I did notice is that when steam says disk write error, i have to manually kill steam but Im unable to kill the steam client bootstrapper through the task manager. I actually have to reboot my system in order to run steam again.

Will make a screenshot in a bit I suppose

[Preference]

Originally posted by PLANTROON:

Another idea:
Does it occur in specific games or upon every game install?
Try disabling Steam Cloud (Steam - Settings - Cloud - Enable Ste......)

Good thought but beat you to it. Already disabled that.

But it happens in specific games like I said at the start. Only 2 games give me these problems out of the 20 installed in between these problems.

I also read somewhere that this problem only happens when allocating/downloading cfg files. Anyone knows something about that?

[Preference]

Here are the SS from my task manager (pardon the dutch!). This is while steam is 'busy' allocating space for Cities: Skylines.

http://nl.tinypic.com/r/2a7iw5d/8
http://nl.tinypic.com/r/29e3t7b/8

Btw, I know microsoft security essentials is running, but it is on nonactive now. I also tried it before without any antivirus scanner installed on computer, but no luck.

Edit: Screenshot off the download page on steam, saying my disk is not busy as well...
http://nl.tinypic.com/r/cp4z6/8

[Preference]

This is what happens when I somehow do get it to download for a few seconds. See what the hard drive does according to steam...

http://nl.tinypic.com/r/2lmxhs1/8

[PLANTROON]

I noticed atkexComSvc program in the Task Manager. It's from ASUS AI program (or whatever it's called). Do you use it ? It's not essential and it's not even required for the motherboard to work well with Windows. You should uninstall this..
Also, Microsoft Security Essentials never caused troubles for me. It's like the least invasive AV so I use Win Defender (which is almost the same) on my PC :D
I told you to order the processes by CPU usage, with such CPU some may get rounded to zero and I can't really see the ones using the CPU. Anyways, there may be further information required... from things like Resource Monitor and maybe Sysinternals Suite....

[PLANTROON]

So to sum up the steps:
Remove AI suite, AI charger .. those fancy asus programs if you don't use them. Reboot PC afterwards.
Then tell me what you have in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\* (temp,downloading folders). If you are not downloading anything on Steam right now, they're safe to remove.
Then check if Cities Skylines is in the "common" folder. If it is, check it's content.

If none of that helps, try running chkdsk (as the user "_I_" suggested) and "sfc /scannow"
Both in elevated (administrator) command prompts. The first one will check the filesystem for errors, the second one will check system files.

[Preference]

I only have a few components of the asus software installed. The ones to control the fan speed and check temperature and flash bios are installed. The AI+ chargers and those kinds of crap are not installed.

Because I just completely installed steam I do not have a "common" folder yet as I do not have a game fully installed yet. Only a downloading -, workshop folder and an appmanifest file.

I will now start the chkdsk but that will take a while so won't responds till in the morning!

Thank you so far :)

[_I_]

there are alot of background tasks


start -> run -> msconfig
startup tab, untick all startup items
service tab, untick all non ms items
reboot


https://www.malwarebytes.org/mwb-download/
install mbam
run mbam, let it update, and full scan
fix all problems
reboot in safe mode
run mbam, let it full scan
fix all problems
reboot


also check task scheduler, many newer forms of malware use it to update or reinstall themselves
start -> right click on computer -> manage
computer management -> system tools -> task scheduler -> task scheduler library
that list should be empty

[Preference]

Okay, as nothing changed with the measures pointed out above I got so annoyed that I completely reinstalled my PC. So my SSD is completely clean and formatted my HDD.

After the installation the same thing occured...

http://nl.tinypic.com/r/20935ao/8
http://nl.tinypic.com/r/23sj1pj/8

Im starting to get real desperate here -.-