Make sure you have a backup of the data on your D: drive. If this is an internal drive then it could be going bad.
I should add that the warning message always points to that same file, D:/$BitMap. Never any other file.
Also, I built this computer myself, from parts. Don’t know if that’s relevant, but I wanted to point out that it’s not a brand, like a Dell or something, so I can’t call the computer maker, because that’s me.
Sheesh.
a disk that is FAILING
Get your data backed up NOW, if you haven't already done so.
Run chkdsk on your next reboot (consult your friendly help system for the how-to).
My first thought would be a hardware failure.
It would be your hard drive controller or your hard drive. It might also be a corruptied partition, if your D: drive is a partition, rather than a separate physical drive.
Back up all essential data to external drive/CD/DVD.
Then run some hardware checks.
Is this an external hard drive? The error message you received usually occurs when the communication between the motherboard and the drive is interrupted. You may have a bad cable or a loose connection. Make sure all of your cables are securely seated on both ends. If the problem continues, you may want to try replacing the cables. If that does not work, you should probably run some diagnostics against your hard drive to see if it is going bad.
We need far more information than this. System configuration info, hardware specs, a list of installed programs, updates, etc. Run the free tool Belarc Advisor will give you most of that info. Free user-level, user-friendly tool.
If you wanted on off the cuff guess, I’d say you have a program attempting to write to D:. I’ve seen quite a few XP machines with the oh-so-annoying and system-abuse ‘Waiting to write backup to blah-drive’ in the system tray. 95% of the time, their cd or dvd packet writer software has been configured to either prompt user to backup up or complete a prior attempt at a backup to media(cd/dvd disk).
Need way more info to be sure though.
Your drive is going bad. Save your stuff and put a new one in while you still can.
One more thing,
What sort of hardware configuration do you have going on?
Number of physical hard drives.
IDE, SATA, SCSI?
Any RAID configuration involved?
Not backing up a disk of data you want - on any computer system - is a mistake for which you may or may not pay. Defrag the disk. If defrag finds disk errors the system will attempt to repair them on the next boot. DO NOT RUN DEFRAG BEFORE BACKING UP. If the disk is going, asking it to run a defrag may kill it.
Go to the disk manufacturers web site and download their SMART tools. Western Digital, for instance, uses Data Lifeguard Tools. The SMART tool should give you an idea of the overall health of the disk.
Google and run "Rootkit Revealer" ... you should find it on a Microsoft.com web page. Rootkits live by the $ sign.
Replace the disk.
I ran into a similar problem when a disk was full, at which point additional saves corrupted the file system.
Before attempting any further saves on the drive, pull up some data files, music files, ZIP files, etc. to make sure they are not corrupt (I discovered the corruption when a music file started halfway though a different song).
If the file system has not been corrupted, do a full backup, then copy some data to a second drive or CD and delete it from the first drive to create additional free space (I like to keep 10-20% of a disk free for performance reasons).
Let us know how this works out for you -
I’ve seen this often when a USB external drive is disconnected but obviously there’s a direct cause there as cached disk writes can’t be completed.
If it’s an internal drive then there should be any ‘good’ reason for the error message, only bad.
general advice - google the exact message and you’ll find all the advice you want.
Ahem.
I am no computer guru but chance would have it that I too recently began getting errors that “delayed write” failed.
Let me tell you what causes it and I can point you in the direction of how to fix it.
“Delayed write” is a function of the USB port, I think. You get this error when something is plugged into a USB port that does not match the version of the USB port. IE...there’s now a version 2.0 for the USB port but my computer’s USB port is geared for an earlier version. The later versions go faster.
So I purchased a wireless receiver that plugs into a computer’s USB port, a fancey-dancy...faster than a speeding bullet wireless receiver which I immediately plugged into the USB port. That’s when I started getting the DELAYED WRITE messages.
Now this DELAYED WRITE message doesn’t come up all the time. Usually you’ll get this when your computer’s doing something else and somehow whatever’s going on with that USB port is DELAYED until the computer is freed up. However, this DELAYED WRITE feature only works on the later version of the USB software. Evidently, heh, the super speed stuff allows a “save” by somehow “delaying” the write until the computer is free. Allowing you, the user, to move along without a computer tied up doing stuff. I’m guessing here.
Anyhoo, I did a search on Microsoft’s XP site...”DELAYED WRITE” I typed because, duh, that’s an error message I’d never seen before.
It seems you can click on the drive, working from memory here, and stop it from doing a DELAYED WRITE. I think it’s under “policies” or some such.
Anyway, I did that and boom, no problems since. Yeah, at times I have to wait for the computer and I would add there’s adapters to upgrade your USB port.
Again, I am NO computer guru but I did just happen to have this problem and it was really awful. Excel and Word was fracturing the files trying to be saved on that DELAYED WRITE and it was almost a disaster. I lost some really important data until I figured it out.
If I’m not right about the above, at least I hope I’ve pointed you in the right direction.
good luck.
For later...
You have had a lot of advice. Since it is occuring in the same file it is probably a sector going bad on the disc. You can try the various malware scans but the first thing I would do is take an image of the hard drive and transfer it to a brand new drive.
Once you have done this, you can do all of the scans or cures you want with the safety of having a back up that not includes your data but also your operating system, drivers and programs.
Saving data is the most important but tracking down and installing all of your programs and drivers is a huge PIA.
If it is just malware, you can use the extra drive as back up in case of trouble.
My 2 cents.