Here is my problem :

I bought a Maxtor DiamondMax 10 300GB 16MB Cache SATA coupled with a Silicon Image 3112A SATA Controller. I was never able to install Windows XP on this drive as it always crashed before the end.
I connect the hard drive to an existing Windows XP Pro SP2 installation and when i transfer any big files (500MB or more), i get the "Delayed Write Failed" error and the hard drive just disapears from windows! The drive reappears after i reboot.


What i did :

1- I spent hours reading all i could find about this error on the internet but no solution yet!
2- I updated all the drivers and BIOS of all my hardware but no change.
3- I returned the drive where i bought it and they did tons of tests only to return the same drive saying the drive was perfectly fonctional. So i guess the drive does not have any problems.
4- I thought it might be my Firewire controller because of Microsoft's article "885464", so i removed it from my computer but didn't change anything.
5- For the silicon image 3112 SATA controller, windows xp installed drivers version 1.0.0.50. I updated to version 1.0.0.51 and now instead of getting the "Delayed Write Failed" error, my computer just freezes and i need to reboot.


Some articles from the Microsoft Knowledge Base regarding the "delayed write failed" :

*** http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;885464 <-- The symptoms are exactly what I'm getting but the HotFix didn't fix anything and i'm not using a 1394 Drive, i just have a 1394 controller, nothing connected to it.

http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;330174
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;870894
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;842520


Exact error i get :

-------------------
Windows - Delayed Write Failed : Windows was unable to save all the data for the file G:\$Mft. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere.
-------------------

From event viewer :
0000: 04 00 04 00 02 00 52 00 ......R.
0008: 00 00 00 00 32 00 04 80 ....2..box
0010: 00 00 00 00 9d 00 00 c0 ....box..À
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0028: 9d 00 00 c0 box..À
-------------------


When i look into my event viewer, these errors appear every time the "delayed write failed" occurs (in chronological order) :

1- "An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk2\D during a paging operation." (SOURCE = Disk)
2- "The device, \Device\Scsi\SI3112r1, did not respond within the timeout period." (SOURCE = SI3112r)
3- "The system failed to flush data to the transaction log. Corruption may occur." (SOURCE = Ftdisk)
4- "The device, \Device\Harddisk2\D, is not ready for access yet." (SOURCE = Disk)


My configuration :

Athlon XP 2600+
2x256 MB DDR-SDRAM 333mhz (dual channel)
GeForce 6600GT
SB Audigy 2
MSI 6570 K7N2G-L NForce 2 Chipset
-Bios = v4.1 080204
Firewire PCI Controller
***Silicon Image 3112 revision 2 <-- SATA PCI Controller
-Bios = 4.2.50
-WinXP Drivers = 1.0.0.51
IBM 120GB IDE
Maxtor 80GB IDE
Maxtor DiamondMax 10 300GB 16MB Cache SATA


I'm TOTALY desperate!!! Please, Anyone can help?? I invested a lot of money in this drive, and i can't get a refund so i need to find a solution! Thank you all for the help!

Arnaud
http://www.xarj.com

Just a quick question, sorry if it's totally off the mark but, when you were trying to install XP did you install the SATA drivers at the F6 prompt?

Are you installing this drive with MaxBlast?

From Maxtor:

Complete interactive Serial ATA installation guide.

Also:

DiamondMax 10

There is no other way to install Windows on an SATA drive then to press F6 and manually install the SATA drivers for windows to detect the drive, so yes, i did press F6.

In my latest attempts, i did not use MaxBlast but i did at other occasions with the same results. Last couple times i use Partition Magic 8.

What do you think about the fact that my symptoms are exactly what microsoft descibes in this article :
http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...kb;en-us;885464
But i only have a 1394 controller installed, the drive is SATA and has nothing to do with Firewire ??? I tried the drive with and without the Firewire controller but changes nothing.

I'll try partitioning and formatting the drive with MaxBlast 4 again. Now that i removed the firewire adapter, maybe some miracle would happen?? I'll let you know if anything positive happens.

Thank you!
Arnaud
http://www.xarj.com

The similarities to 885464 are indeed interesting. You say you tried the hotfix without result?

Are you installing from an XP SP2 disk or do you have the same issues without SP2?

Also: has this "Delayed Write Failed" resulted in any .dmp files?

My windows XP installation disk has SP2 incorporated so i haven't tried with SP1.

The Hotfix does not work.

Everytime i get the "delayed write failed" error, when i reboot the computer, scandisk appears to scan my DiamondMax 10 drive and finds multiple errors. I'm not sure if that answers your question about creating .dmp files???

I would like to know if anyone has been able to successfully use the Maxtor 300GB SATA on a MSI K7N2G motherboard (nForce 2, MS-6570) ??? This way i would know it is not my motherboard creating this problem.

Thank you
Arnaud
http://www.xarj.com

In regards to .dmp or dump logs:

If your machine has created any they can lead to very detailed info on issues.

To see if any have been created:

go to start/search/.dmp

If found then:

1) Download and install the
Debugging Tools from Microsoft
2) Download and install this
debugwiz
3) Open the Wiz & Browse to, or paste in the path to, your latest .dmp file.
4) After the Wiz creates a Text document post it back to this thread.

You may want to start a new thread in the Hardware section re: hard drive/ mobo issue. Some who read there don't read here.

Hopoe this helps.