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]

Did you try changing your download server ?
Steam Settings - Downloads - Download region

[Preference]

Opprinnelig skrevet av PLANTROON:

Did you try changing your download server ?
Steam Settings - Downloads - Download region

Yes, I did that. Same thing, stuck on allocating. After crashing steam and reopening Steam, it starts downloading for like 5-10 seconds and stops.

The exact same thing basically...

Im now running an extremely slow check on my HDD with HD Tune, will post the results but halfway through it is still all okay...

[PLANTROON]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Preference:

Opprinnelig skrevet av PLANTROON:

Did you try changing your download server ?
Steam Settings - Downloads - Download region

Yes, I did that. Same thing, stuck on allocating. After crashing steam and reopening Steam, it starts downloading for like 5-10 seconds and stops.

The exact same thing basically...

Im now running an extremely slow check on my HDD with HD Tune, will post the results but halfway through it is still all okay...

You reinstalled your OS already. Try it without the ASUS programs at least once xD
They may be blocking things. Especially if there's something network related or some "wannabe protection" things. It's not a HDD error, that would fail differently.

[TheRevenite]

Sorry to necro an old post, but this issue looks like it was never resolved, and I had the same issue. Seeing as this is the first result in google, and other results are simply RedIt copies, I'll throw in my solution(?) or advice.

First, my configuration:
ASRock Z77 Extreme 4
Intel Core i7 3770 @ 5GHz (water Cooled)
32GB Ballistix DDR3 2800
2x PNY XLR8 SSD's RAID 0 (OS, rarely used Programs)
4x 4tb Seagate 7200 RPM RAID 0 (Steam, Origin, GOG Games)
2x EVGA GeForce gtx 7800 SC ACX editions SLI


Hre's what I found ( On two computers, similar hardware, save for 1 SSD for OS and Office and 1 seagate 1TB for games)

Installing certain games causes a huge delay when initiating the installation from Steam. COD games, it takes a mere few seconds, while other games like Skyrim take forever.

Monitoring the hard drive read and writes, I found that the COD games did not pre allocate the space with a cache file equivelent of the games installed size, while Skyrim @6gb allocated 6gb. Since it's on mechanical drives, even with raid, the install prep time was much longer.

On the second machine with the smaller storage space, it took longer and crashed once it tried to finish allocating the space. While I could NOT determine if the game was holding the 6gb of space for Skyrim AND using an additional 6gb of space for the download, AND holding space for the completed install, I suspect it IS the issue for some larger games.

The other thing I found out was the firmware was old on the single HD computer. Upgrading that shortened the time immediately. I'm under the assumption the Firmware corrected a caching issue, so this may be something to check on your existing hard drives. On the RAID computer, the firmwares were not all the same, so updating (through a bootable DOS CD) required me to turn RAID off, updated each firmware, re-enabling RAID, and booting back into windows. This was a marked improvement in performance.

Lastly, DEFRAG all physical hard drives prior to large downloads. This will help prevent data from the game install in writing to an open area of the disk, in which you will need to defrag again after your installations are complete. I've seen slow installs and installs that crash simply due to Windows having to look for random empty space.

Hope this helps others who end up here looking for a possible solution.

[Max]

Same issue...6 month old 1 gig HDD that run fine, only has games on it...Had to de-reinstall steam because of the changes in Wallpaper engine screwing up the updates and of course there went my games. Oh well, at least once it's done the Prey download and Installation was super fast....

[GR34TD3STR0Y3R]

This is happening to me too. First it was an ARK update. Its strange you mention COD. I bought 3 COD games since having the problem and they installed fine. Then Advanced Warfare was free to play this weekend, and I thought why not. It would not get past Allocation of Space.... Then I bought Anno 2205 and its doing it again. I am running a 950 Samsung m.2 SSd with over 200gb free. Zero errors. Defraged. Samsung utlitly also says drive is fine. I just tried Anno on a regular HDD and it installed no problem. I tried all the suggestions from here (https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=2274-IFLV-5334) but re-installing steam.

[TheRevenite]

You may want to check and see if TRIM is functioning. I had PNY SSD's, 4 of them, all defective with no way to enable them. There are several TRIM specific testing tools.

Remeber, HD's and SSD's allocate space differently. SSD's can and will write to any open cell, while a hard drive writes randomly, where ever the allocation table says there is free space.

It could also be the hard drive controller drivers, so check and make sure they're updated.

[DUW_ichbaum]

i am waiting für 2.5h now.
The Preallocation is not ready yet.

Win 10
Ryzen 1700+
16GB RAM
HDD is active with 7MB/s (Steam Folder)

Installs on SSDs need long too.

This preallocation os totaly not needed!
It costs me way more time to wait that the download of 40GB will take ( 400MBit/s down).

https://imgur.com/a/SiteD

[TheRevenite]

So I decided to redownload the COD games that installed quickly and Skyrim that took forever and see WHY this is happening.

The only thing I saw was the read/writes to my hard drives for the COD games was relativly low, and allowed other system resources and programs to use the drives with no problem. Skyrim, on the otherhand, was downloading AND installing at the same time, meaning instead of just using 60gb of space, it was trying to allocate 120GB while it not only downloaded the entire install, but was installing at the same time. This created 100% disk use for STEAM for the drive I was installing to.

It appears some games literally just copy the game installed already, then adds the relevant registry info, while other games downloads an entire installer, and installs taking up twice the space AND using 100% of that disks resources.

[Rayyan]

Opprinnelig skrevet av 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

dude same thing happened with me i bought gta5 from sale well what you do is uninstall the game then start downloading the game again and locate the space for the game

[Rayyan]

this is your problem 100% cuz the same happened with me

[Midnight Conspiracy]

happened the same to me for naruto shippuden ultimate ninja 4 :(

[Deadman]

I am having the same problems. My steam crashes after 10 seconds because Cities Skyline has workshop downloads to download. I cannot stop the download, and it always crashes my steam client (not responding for a few minutes then force closes). I have to uninstall Cities Skyline to get my Steam client to stay open... I tried so many things including reinstalling Steam, deleting temp files, scan hard drive for errors... nothing is working!

I contacted Steam support, they said 1) Contact a local PC specalist..... 2) unsubscribe all workshop mods (I have thousands, I cannot play Cities Skyline without workshop files!

[Jeffyy]

I'm having the same problem as the first guy when ever i try to download Far cry 4, it downloads the game but doesn't allocate and i left it allocating for 2 days seeing if it was just really slow since than ive tried to redownload it and every time it stops when allocating disk space

[DapperRobot]

Also having this problem with Far Cry 4, tried several times to no avail. Loading bar for allocating disk space seems to have gotten on further, but nothing seems to be happening, and HDD activity light isn't constant as you'd expect it to be.