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