Vegas and Very Large Disks

matt24671 wrote on 2/12/2004, 10:39 AM

Folks--
Just bought a new, large hard drive (Maxtor 250 GB) for video files. Formatted it NTFS, and all appeared to be fine until I started copying avi files onto it from another drive. Now I'm getting the error 'Windows Delayed Write Failure; Data Has Been Lost.'

Should I partition it into smaller sections, or is the problem something else? Does Vegas care whether the drive is large or not?

Thanks!

Comments

BillyBoy wrote on 2/12/2004, 10:53 AM

Its both a Windows and drive thing. Normally it means nothing. One of my Maxtor drives does the same thing... off and on. I haven't actually lost any data, but for sure it gets annoying for Windows to constantly pop up the window saying what it does.

The web is full of articles on this issue, so is Microsoft's Knowledgebase. As a last restort you can disable the drive's write ahead buffer which should cure the problem, but slow down your drive a good deal.

Before you do anything check in your setup (BIOS) and be SURE your drive is set up properly and also look in Windows Device Manager to see if it is reporting anything wrong.

I'm trying to remember what I did. I think nothing but have Windows run a full discheck which from NTFS can take awhile for a big drive, but doing it can get rid of some problems.

busterkeaton wrote on 2/12/2004, 11:03 AM

Check the Microsoft site for that error message, I think, the solution I did was to disable write caching on that drive from within Device Manager.

matt24671 wrote on 2/12/2004, 1:30 PM

Thank you to both of you for your replies - it's great to have such a knowledgeable and responsive online community.

PAW wrote on 2/12/2004, 2:03 PM

There is a limit of 121MB (or something close) which a number of apps and windows can struggle with (defrag programs are another example).

I have seen recommendations that say partioning is best used on the larger drives.

Can't lay my hands on the articles right now but I have seen it.

Cheers, Paul

PAW wrote on 2/12/2004, 2:17 PM

Just remembered it was on a a note with a WD drive I bought

"Current windows OS (98/NT/Me/200/XP) do not have native support for drives larger then 137GB"

The 250GB drives I bought had a controller card with drivers to support it but there is still a note that says certain Os utilities (eg defrags) may still not function propoerley. Creating partitions less than 137GB is the recommendation.

Try the WD website for more info

Regards, Paul

johnmeyer wrote on 2/12/2004, 2:43 PM

I have a 250 GByte Maxtor Firewire drive. No problems so far.

Try this:

In Windows Explorer, right click on the drive icon. Select Properties.

Click on the "Hardware" tab. Click on the name of your drive, and then click on Properties. Click on the "Policies" tab. Look at the "Enable write caching on this disk" checkbox and change it (like Yogi Berra said, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it."). See if that fixes the problem.

FWIW, the box for my 250 Gbyte drive is checked.

donp wrote on 2/12/2004, 8:12 PM

For my Maxtop 160 gig drive I had to install sp1 for XP and the "Large drive enabler" from Maxtor for XP to see more than 137 of the 160 gig.

ronaldf wrote on 2/12/2004, 9:27 PM

I only have a 120 gig maxtor and get the same message occasionally. I have never loss any data that I know of. I'm running XPpro SP1. Asus A7N8X deluxe with AMD XP2100 and 512 meg ram.

TheHappyFriar wrote on 2/13/2004, 6:00 PM

I had a 160mb WD drive that worked file until I read this post. Then it started to act up and I had to make it into 2 80gb partitions! :)

riredale wrote on 2/13/2004, 6:11 PM

I have a couple of 200GB drives on my XPpro (without the SP-1 update) system, and it works quite happily with them. No need here to partition. Perhaps the limitations have more to do with the BIOS in some systems. I do recall that, when I updated my BIOS last year, one of the items in the notes that accompanied it was "enabled support for >137GB drives."

TheHappyFriar wrote on 2/13/2004, 7:12 PM

My bois detects it as a 160gb. I tripple checked that. But, Windows just started having problems accessing it yesterday (after 5 days of no problems). However, I did place it in my external firewire case and it worked just fine (the case said it woud support up to 300gb), but I needed it in my PC. :)

Since I partitioned it today i'll see in a week how it's working. Right now i'm keeping a copy of everything important on my external firewire and the partitioned 160. Just in case. :)

busterkeaton wrote on 2/13/2004, 10:24 PM

Matt,

What johnmeyer describes detail is the fix that also worked for me

Caruso wrote on 2/14/2004, 2:22 AM

Sometimes I have this problem when I boot up or, since I move my system around a lot, when I'm setting up. Sometimes my system likes me to reassemble with all my external drives hooked up before I power up, sometimes, I'm more successful if I plug them in, one by one.

In any case, when I get the error message about delayed write failure, I know that, when I try to access the drive in question, either I can't access it at all, or if I can access it, things don't work properly. AVI file icons I know should be there are present, but, when I click on them, they won't play.

My solution mirrors that suggested by BillyBoy. Simply reboot, and sit patiently as WinXP runs through that routine where it says some disks need checking.

Works for me everytime.

I really wish Windows didn't have a habit of posting such nasty warning messages (data lost, fatal error, and the like). I've read elsewhere on this board where someone states that they lost all their data on an external drive due to this delayed write failure. I'm guessing that what really happened is that they believed the XP error message and altered things on the drive further without first rebooting and letting XP disk checking do its thing.

Caruso

TheHappyFriar wrote on 2/14/2004, 5:02 AM

I would get the bluescreen of death/memory dump ocationatly. I noticed something when i was burning DVD's and i'd come back and the computer rebooted.