Article ID: 870894 - Last Review: April 9, 2012 - Revision: 4.0

You receive a "Delayed Write Failed" error message in Windows XP Service Pack 2 or Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005

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SYMPTOMS

After you install Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) or Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005, you may receive the following error message during ordinary usage:
Delayed Write Failed
Windows was unable to save all the data for the file drive_letter:\file_path\file_name. 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.
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CAUSE

This problem may occur if your computer uses a 3ware RAID controller, and you have configured the RAID controller for optimal performance. As part of your configuration, you turned off the following settings by modifying the CacheControl registry entry to the value of 0x00000031:
  • The FUA (Force Unit Access: write through) bit on SCSI writes
  • SRB flush commands
  • SCSI flush commands
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WORKAROUND

To work around this problem you must set CacheControl to zero:
  1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
  2. Locate and then click the following key in the registry:
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\3ware Storage Controller\Cache Control
  3. On the Edit menu, click Modify.
  4. Type 0, and then press ENTER.
  5. Quit Registry Editor.
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STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.
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Keywords: 
kbupgrade kbsetup kbhardware kbdriver kbtshoot kberrmsg kbnofix kbbug KB870894
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