People who bought games on the Steam platform sometimes get an error when they try to download or update them. This is called a “Steam disk write error.” These messages usually show up when you try to download or install a new game or while updating a game that you already have. It can also show up when you try to start a game that needs to be updated.
What is a steam disk write error?
The Steam disk write error shows up when steam isn’t able to download and save game data to your computer’s storage drive during an update or when you start a new game.
The disk write error can happen when the following things happen:
On the hard drive, there are flaws.
- The drive or Steam folder can’t be written to.
- There are files in the Steam directory that aren’t working or that are old.
- Steam can’t download or save data because your antivirus or firewall blocks it.
- Read on to figure out how to fix the Steam Disk Write Error.
How to fix disk write error steam 2021
The computer needs to be turned off and then turned back on. Close and reopen steam if that doesn’t solve the steam disk write error. If that doesn’t work, rebooting the computer could solve it by shutting down other programs that might be interfering with steam.
It’s time to fire up steam again. Close the Steam client, open it again, and download or play the game again to make sure it’s not a short-term thing.
Write to the hard drive. It stops a computer from changing or adding files to a folder or the whole drive, which is called “write protection.” To figure out the storage drive of your Steam games, check to see if write protection is on that drive. Then, stop write protection from that drive to fix the steam error.
Steam can only be run as an administrator, so run it as an owner. When you run the software as an administrator, it has more power and can fix a lot of weird things.
The read-only setting should be turned off for the Steam folder so it can’t be read. This means that if the Steam directory is set to read-only, the full directory can’t be written to. If you open the properties of the Steam folder, make sure the read-only setting isn’t turned on there.
Get rid of corrupted files. It can happen when an error occurs while steam is downloading a game. It may create a bad file which may show the Steam disk write error. If you want to fix this, open the main Steam folder and go to the steam apps/common folder. Make sure you don’t have any files that are bigger than 0 KB when you try to download or start a game.
Clear the Steam cache. If the Steam download cache isn’t up to date, it can cause an error with disk write. To fix this, open Steam and go to steam> Settings > Downloads > Clear Download Cache to clear the download cache.
Check to see if the game files are safe. Right-click the game and choose Properties from the drop-down menu that pops up in your Steam library. Then, open the Local Files tab and choose to Verify the Integrity of Game Files from the drop-down menu. In the event that steam finds any corrupted files, it will automatically replace those files with new ones.
Drive away from steam. If the drive is broken, steam may not be able to write to it. If you have a lot of different partitions and drives, copy the Steam installation folder to a different drive so that you can play the game.
Add exceptions to the antivirus program or turn it off. In very rare cases, antivirus programs can think steam is a threat and stop it from saving and downloading game data. You can add an exception for steam to your antivirus scans if the Steam disk write error is fixed when the antivirus is turned off so that it doesn’t happen again.
You should look over the drive to see if there are any errors. In some cases, this process can find bad sectors and tell Windows not to use them again. If the steam disk write error doesn’t go away or gets worse, you may need to buy a new hard drive.
Add exceptions or turn off the firewall. If turning off the firewall solves the steam disk write error, add an exception to the Windows firewall so that it won’t block you.
The best way to get help is to call steam. Steam’s support team will show you how to solve your steam disk write error. In the Steam Community forum, you can also get help from other people who play the game.