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Why do I receive a cannot write to disk error?

Posted By : Chester of University of Advancing Computer Technology on September 2, 2000

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After running my computer for a short while it locks up and blue screens with an error "Can't write to drive C:" and then i have to improperly shut it down. I have run scan disk and defrag to try to eliminate any problems but found nothing. I have also checked for conflicts in the system device manager and found none.

I from time to time get a "windows fatal exception error" as well, but much less frequently than the cant write to drive C:. It's like it can't find the harddrive.I don't want to have to format and reload if i can avoid it. I have no way to back up my files and would loose too much stuff.

Any help you could provide would be most appreciated.

Sincerely,

Steve J.

This question was answered on September 2, 2000. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.


A couple of problems may be occuring here.

1 You may be out of room on your hard drive Windows creates

virtual memory that is used in conjunction with your RAM.

most of the time, windows allocates an identical amount of

space on your hard drive, to the amount of RAM you have This

space is used to swap information in and out of your processor.

if you are trying to write into this protected space, you will

receive the write error.

2 You may have bad sectors on your hard drive that windows

cannot write to From the c:/ prompt in DOS run scandisk,

and choose thorough examination If you have bad scectors

they will be dectected and marked so that windows will not

attempt to write to them.

3 Your hard drive may be getting ready to have a head crash

a head crash can occur for many reasons, most of the time

it's because the hard drive took a good bounce, and the device

that floats above the disk to read it, has come into contact

with the disk Then there may be actual physical damage to

the drive itself.

If the data is critical, I would suggest backing it up NOW, and

consider replacing the drive.

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Posted by Chester of University of Advancing Computer Technology on September 2, 2000

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