Topic: "Windows - Delayed Write Failed" message on a perfectly good machine

[TommyCee]

Firstly, I have read this post:
http://www.greyknight17.com/bb/index.php?topic=3405.0

I have an HP xw4400 Workstation configured w/ C/D/G/H drives.  160GB/SATA Western Digital C-drive (where all apps are installed) is backed up to identical D-drive (I use my own backup routines:  XXcopy).  500GB/SATA Western Digital G-drive is backed up to identical H-drive.  All drives are local/fixed (no SCSI/external backup drives, etc.)  After years of great performance, only yesterday did I notice the surprising Windows - Delayed Write Failed message.
 
I examined several things discussed/described here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/330174
 
All the trouble seems to be confined to my G-drive - what I call my main data drive where I do most of my work.  I noticed a general "sluggishness" in PC performance just before I noticed the DWF message (echoed in the KRC article cited above), which occurred while I was trying to compile a Fortran project.  Writing to the G-drive now seems to be sporadic:   sometimes tiny files can be saved piecemeal; other times, the message triggers when trying to save larger files, and it even appears that the G-drive temporarily "vanishes from radar" (I have to reboot for XP to show it to me again).
 
Interestingly, when I went into My Computer and accessed the G-drive:
Properties | Hardware | Properties | Policies
 
I noticed the "Write Caching & Safe removal" window (which presents 2 options) is entirely "grayed" out.  (This window is also grayed out for the other drives, fwiw.)  Through the "haze", I see that the "Optimum for performance" option is selected.  What I don't see (which I do see on drives installed in a Dell box I have) is this below the two choices ('X' represents a checked box):
 
X    Enable write caching on the disk
This setting enables write caching to improve disk performance, but a power outage or equipment failure might result in data loss of corruption.
 
Does anything jump out at you as to what might be going on?  Have you seen this before - just show up from nowhere?  What might I check next?  (I was hoping to stay away for RegEdit.)

I can post other system data  if necessary.  Meanwhile, I'll start by running chkdsk /r

[Kevin]

From my own experience, whenever I see that error it's usually a sign of the hard drive failing. I suggest backing up the entire drive to another hard drive (get another 500GB or larger if you like).

Regarding the grayed out option, unless your drive is a removable/external device, the options for write caching and safe removal will not be available for you to select. You can try this by plugging an external hard drive to the computer and check the properties/policies tab for it.

I'm not sure why the enable write caching on the disk is missing though. Is it only happening to the 500GB drive? Check the C:/D: drive properties and see if it's available. This is the only logical explanation I can come up with.

[TommyCee]

Thanks for your reply, Kevin.

Yes, the same situation (visually) occurs on all the other drives.  You opinion about the external drive may be valid.

More importantly, your impression about the drive going south is also probably valid.  Since I posted this, and going on similar hunches fro other sources, I removed the offending drive and the DWF message vanished.  OS speed returned, as well.

What surprises me is that, in the Microsoft KB article I cited above, "hardware" is mentioned as a possible cause but emphasis is made of other factors relating to caching, etc.  This was true of other  articles I gleaned.  I have been praying for years that MS (Bill Gates et al.)  would - in its OSs - develop diagnostics that would trigger a message that really indicates what the $#%*%$^* problem is, not a generic catch-all for 11 possible issues.  But I digress ...

When last I attempted, my success at accessing and copying contents from this drive were limited.  If my attempts were too "ambitious", the DWF message would appear and - at times - the drive would vanish from radar, as I descried above.

Per you suggestion, when I saw this coming (and believe me, I did), I ran my xxCopy utility to try to update the entire volume (~20GB stored) onto another drive, as I've done dozens of times before.  (BTW, I last did this on 1/31/09.)   It ran thru the paces for a few minutes and then - when the DWF message triggered - the process came to a halt.  Here's the worst part (and this may shock you):  When I looked at the destination (backup) drive, it had only 13 of 56 directories!  Where did the others go?  It's as though - in its process - it first removes all directories from the destination drive, and then attempts to lay down updated directories one at a time (until it wedged up, or course). I wonder if my thinking is right here ...

My current plan is this:
I've ordered a SATA/USB adaptor.  I intend to use this to try to read this drive with one of a couple different machines I have and try to coax some of the data off it.

Your thoughts are welcome.

[Kevin]

I won't depend on Microsoft to tell me when something is wrong with my hard drives. I either go by what I have seen in my past experience or run third party tools like HDTune (free) or SpinRite (paid) to see if something is wrong with the drives.

I wouldn't go copying your files in huge bunches. If possible, try copying a folder at a time for those that are huge. If it's just small files within a handful of folders, grab the entire parent folder. Otherwise, if there are hundreds of big files inside a folder, I recommend going after 20 or so files at a time...copying it to the hard drive using the SATA-USB adapter. This way you can also tell if there is a file corrupted from there instead of second guessing everything when files fail to copy over. Be prepared for the worse as there may be some files that are not recoverable. If you want, you can also try using data recovery programs to see if it helps. One I recommend is EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard:

http://www.easeus.com/

If it's files you can get back or have a backup of, I wouldn't even go into using any data recovery program as the good ones (like the one above which I have used before in the past) will cost a lot plus it will take a long time for the recovery process/scans.

[TommyCee]

Well, let me give you the Paul Harvey "Rest of the Story":

After getting to a point I could almost not shut my workstation down, I finally accomplished that and I removed the offending drive.  Thereafter, the OS worked perfectly normal (and fast) and no more DWF messages.

On Sat. morning, I rigged up the drive to a SATA/USB adaptor and attached it to another healthy PC.  It "saw" the drive but when I attempted to copy even a modest directory, the DWF message appeared and the rest is as I have described before.  I went into My Computer and, for that drive:  Properties | Hardware | Properties | Policies and noted that it was set to the 1st option (Optimized for quick removal - This setting disables write caching on the disk and in Windows, so you can disconnect the device without using the Safe Removal icon.)  I switched it to the 2nd option:

Optimized for performance - This setting enables write caching in Windows to improve disk performance.   To disconnect this device from your computer, click the Safely Remove Hardware icon in the taskbar notification area.

I then disconnected the drive and restarted the PC.  At this point, the drive began exhibiting the familiar and grievous "clicking" sound which drives do on their deathbeds!  This was definitely not good.

So, given the scenario that my G-drive was now toast, I reverted to my earlier theory and understanding that relates to its backup drive (H).  As I mentioned before, when I last attempted a backup for the G (when I sensed thing might really be going South), my backup script (which uses xxCopy) ran for a few minutes until the DWF message reappeared and it choked.  At that point, I noted that of the 56 directories on the G-drive, only 13 appeared on the H-drive!  Of course, before the backup commenced, all 56 directories were there.  Mysteriously, it's as though the entire drive volume was purged and it began laying down backed-up volume a bit at a time until it choked.

But regardless of all this, it occurred to me that the volume I successfully backed up New Years Eve should be there, but only would need to be UNdeleted.

I went on line and discovered two UNdelete utilities:

1) Smart UNdelete

http://www.recoverdeletedfilestool.com/

$29.90

2) Win-UNdelete

http://www.winundelete.com/

$49.95

Each offered free downloadable DEMOs that would go in and "retrieve" what they saw (the purchased utility would be necessary to actually recover the data).  I ran each and happily noted that my earlier data was very much THERE!  One difference was this:  Smart UNdelete found 81,845 files; Win-UNdelete found 82,410 files.  I liked the look & feel of #2 a little better ...

Are you familiar with these undelete utilities and would/could you make a recommendation?

Finally, another powerful utility I stumbled onto is SpinRite6 (which you mentioned):

http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm
 
Reading and viewing 2 promotional videos, this is supposed to be the most advanced file recovery utility on the planet - far more capable than anything Norton has or that is bundled within WinXP.  Had my drive not croaked (clicking), I may have been able to run SpinRite6 on it to get recover the data.  However, as advertised, SpinRite is supposed to be a great tool for predicting drive failure LONG before WinXP would ever give you a clue - sorta like a canary in a coal mine.  For $89, it seems like it might be a damn good investment.  Any thoughts on SpinRite6?

[Kevin]

I suggest leaving the USB hard drive connection on quick removal process since this is ideal in case you somehow lose connection. I've seen cases where the USB cable was unplugged by mistake or tripped over when the computer is on the floor. These kind of accidents are less prone to happen if it's inside the computer.

If you want, try to use a program called Recuva first to see if it can see those same files and recover them:

http://www.piriform.com/recuva

It's free and hopefully can save you some money. I have not heard of the other two programs you mentioned. I used Recuva before, Recover My Files and EASEUS which I mentioned earlier. RecoverMyFiles is located at:

http://www.getdata.com/

I suggest giving them all a try and then compare how well you like each one and what results they give you. Of all the data recovery programs I tried, EASEUS seems to be the top on my list so far.

I definitely do recommend using the SpinRite software created by Steve Gibson. It's a very small program (since it's written in assembly language) that packs a powerful punch   When it mentions the word data recover, I think it actually means repairing the drive by repairing bad sectors and other more sophisticated processes that chkdsk (by Microsoft) does not do. One these issues have been fixed, obviously your data will be intact assuming the repair was a complete success. I usually use SpinRite to see if the drive is good or bad so I have no experience with the data recovery part. Usually if I see that the drive is bad, I replace it since I still have my data. For $89 it definitely is worth it for this software. You can run this software quarterly throughout the year to make sure the hard drive(s) you have are in good condition.

[TommyCee]

Thanks for your reply & sage thoughts, Kevin.

Your point about "leaving the USB hard drive connection on quick removal process since this is ideal in case you somehow lose connection." is academic.  Maybe you didn't understand the bigger point regarding this drive:  clicking = toast!  I'm sure it totally failed.  It's history.  Kaput!  The drive no longer will even power up.  It starts to spin up w/ clicking noises, then it's as though an internal fuse shuts down the power and it winds down.  Then it attempts to spin up again (w/ clicking) and shuts down.  And the cycle continues ...

So, the ONLY hope for recovery is the UNdelete utility I mentioned applied to what was the backup drive.  Per your suggestion, I downloaded Recuva v1.35 and ran it on my H-drive (backup).  It found & recovered 82,431 files - not bad.  For some reason, 4 directories were unrecoverable but I believe files belonging to these directories were cached in an unstructured straggler folder appearing in the recovered volume.

In the net, I've been able to cobble together >95% of my data (visible H-drive volume + merged recovered data).

You other point re:  SpinRite is well taken.  I believe it's well worth the money as an early forecaster of drive doom.

Final Note to KRC Reders:
If you ever get the nasty & ill-defined Delayed Write Failed error from Windows, immediately suspect the hard drive it points to (via the $MFT message) and take swift action to back up that partition!

[Kevin]

If it just powers on and down repeatedly, it could be a bad part on the controller board...maybe bad diode from what I understand. If you really need those files and the data recovery programs can't recover all of them, you may have to take a look at getting it sent to data recovery centers. These are not cheap and I have sent my hard drive to them before when the controller board starting puffing out smoke. The data I had was years worth of files that I can't spare to lose so I had to suck it up and pay for the data recovery. I learned my mistake and now have two hard drives where they are cloned to each other.

You mentioned backing up the $MFT. I guess that was not corrupted yet on your hard drive if you were able to find all that data back with those programs. It definitely is a crucial piece of information because without it, you will most likely be looking at scattered files since the MFT (Master File Table) will store references on the whereabouts for all your files.

[TommyCee]

Keven,

To be clear, the power cycling occurs when the drive is energized but w/o data cable attached, so the controller isn't even in the equation.  Your suggestion/anecdote about data recovery is well taken and a scenario I am always hoping to avoid.  As I say, I think I recovered most of my data from manipulation the backup drive.  But the challenge there is an interesting part of my story, so that I shall revise my own admonishment.

Final Note to KRC Readers:
This assumes that you have main data Drive-X being periodically backed up to Drive-Y.
If you ever get the nasty & ill-defined Delayed Write Failed error from Windows, immediately suspect the hard drive it points to (via the attendant $MFT message), presumably Drive-X, and take swift action to back up that partition!

1) Go to Drive-Y and, if you can, zip-archive its contents.
2) Run your backup utility (script) to capture the X-drive contents (to Y).
3) Owing to the nature of the DWF messages associated w/ the X-drive, the backup process may not be successful (copying data from X ==> Y).  Examining the destination drive will confirm whether the backup you attempted was successful (e.g., that all directories on the X-drive appear on the Y-drive).  IF the backup failed, you can at least fall back on that compressed file you created before the backup was attempted, a critical step I wish I had thought of doing.