How To Fix Steam Disk Write Error

In this article, learn how to fix Steam disk write error while waiting your game to install or update on Steam.

Let me explain first what is Steam disk write error?

The Steam disk write error can appear when Steam is not able to complete the installation or updating process. These messages typically appear when you try to download or install a new game or try to update a game that you previously installed.

An error has occurred while updating (game title).

An error has occurred while installing (game title).

There may be many different causes behind this depending on the problem your computer encountered. The most commonly suggested solution is to uninstall steam and download the entire content (including games) again. Although this way should work just fine, it is not an easy measure and takes a lot of time. So this post has provided you with a list of ten tested and applied methods.The solutions are easy and simple to work upon. It will get rid of the Disk write error in Steam.

See also:

• Fix: Steam Disk Read Error
• How To Disable/Enable Write Protection for a Disk Drive
• Fix: Windows cannot Run Disk Checking on this Volume Because it is Write Protected

How to Fix Steam Disk Write Error in Windows 10

Method 1. Change Steam Settings

First of all, you will change or modify your Steam settings and then check whether the Steam Disk Write Error gets fixed. This solution will save you effort as well as time.

Among all the regions, the Steam Client choose one and set it as a default region automatically for your system. It is done by detecting your region through the network which you use. If the servers in that specific region having an issue or are overloaded such as hardware failure, so it causes the steam to show Steam Disk Write Error. In that case, changing the download region of the Steam client may deal with the problem. Here are the steps:

1. Open your Steam Client.

2. Go to Settings.

3. In the left panel, select Downloads. And then go to the Download Region.

4. Choose other regions other than your own. Click OK to save changes.

5. Restart your Steam Client.

Method 2. Set Steam folder security to full control

Sometimes disk write error occurs because you don’t have permission to run Steam. Thus you need to change your Steam folder security to full control, and to do so the steps are:

1. First, exit Steam completely and go to your Steam directory, which is by default:

C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam

2. Right-click on Steam and select Properties.

3. Untick the box before Read-only (Only applies to files in folder).

4. Go to the Security tab and then click Edit…

5. Under Group or user names: select your user account, then tick the box Allow for Full control. Click Apply > OK.

This will allow you to permission to have full control over the contents inside the folder.

Method 3. Verify integrity of game files

If some files of your game installation are corrupt or have been deleted, you may encounter this issue. Hence you can verify the integrity of game files to check if it fixes the problem. Here are the steps:

1. Open your Steam client.

2. In Steam, navigate to LIBRARY.

3. Right-click on the game where Steam Disk Write error appears and select on Properties.

4. Go to LOCAL FILES, click on VERIFY INTEGRITY OF GAME FILES…

Wait until the game cache verification finishes

5. Relaunch Steam and then download or update the game again and check if the problem has been fixed.

Method 4. Change Game Folder

To rule out any problems with the folder/drive, we would recommend you change the game folder to an alternate folder location or hard drive. If there are any local files present in the location of the game file which is conflicting, then the problem will be resolved as the entire application will have a new local space. Here are the steps:

1. Open your Steam client and go to Settings.

2. Now navigate to Downloads section, then select on Steam Library Folders and click on Add new Library folder.

3. Then, browse to the new location where you want to shift the game folder.

Now open Steam and check if it is functioning normally.

Method 5. Reset Steam Configuration on PC

This solution will help you to clear Steam’s download cache to resolve the Steam Disk Write Error. To do that, follow these steps:

1. First, exit Steam completely.

2. Press Windows key + R then type steam://flushconfig into the box. Click OK.

3. You will see a dialogue that appeared on your screen, asking you to proceed with the command or cancel. Click OK.

The Steam will restart automatically and hopefully, the Steam disk write error issue will be solved. This command resets the configuration of Steam and when you enter the steam again, every setting will be set as default.

Method 6. Delete the 0 KB Game File

This Steam disk write error may occur because of the 0KB (zero KB) file. The 0KB file is just a blank white file with the name of the game you are having the issue with. You can find it in the common folder of the steamapps folder. This file does not have an extension; just a blank white file with no data having a size of 0KB. Thus you can check if this file exists in your computer and delete it.

1. First, exit Steam completely.

2. Go to the following path:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common

3. Scroll to the bottom to find the file with the name of the game file, and if you see a file that is 0KB in size, delete the file.

After that, repeat the downloading/updating process and check if it is clear of the disk write error.

Method 7. Delete corrupted files in log

Sometimes the Steam stops working due to some corrupt files in Steam log and hence results in showing the Steam Disk Write Error. So using this way, you can check if there’s one and delete it.

1. Go to the path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\logs

2. Now, find and open the file named content_log.txt.

3. Then, move to the bottom of this file and check if there’s a failed to write error:

– If yes, then follow the name and path of the error, and delete the corrupted file.

– If no, then skip and go to method 8.

4. After the above steps are performed, restart the steam and check if the problem gets solved.

Method 8. Remove disk write protection

Another possible reason why you encounter this disk write error is your disk is write protected. Here are the steps to remove disk write protection:

1. Open Command Prompt as Administrator.

2. Type the following commands and press Enter after each:

diskpart

list disk

select disk #

attributes disk clear readonly

3. Close the Command Prompt window.

Now you launch Steam and see if it is functioning normally.

Method 9. Disable your antivirus program

The driver, computer, or any other network operations can be acutely affected by a corrupted Anti-virus on your computer. This can lead to some problems and hence results in causing Steam Disk Write Error. So you have to be sure that your Anti-virus programs are not inhibiting the Steam from running.

Many games are advanced with copy protection technology, thus your Anti-virus software may deliberate it as malware inaccurately during scanning. Then, this will result in causing the unwanted warnings or alerts in the form of Steam Disk Write Error. If you have doubt that you are getting this error due to Anti-virus software, you can turn it off temporarily and check whether the issue is solved.

You may also like: Top Antivirus Software For Windows 10

Method 10. Check your firewall

Sometimes the Steam stops working due to the Windows Firewall prevents them to perform. Thus you need to disable it for sometimes to check if it was the reason why the Steam Disk Write Error happened. The Firewall can disable and restrict the steam from reading or writing anything on your Hard Disk.

Once you have turned the Firewall off, restart your Steam Client and see if the issue remains. If it is removed, you can update your Steam Client, and it will start working again.

See more: How To Disable Windows Defender Security Center In Windows 10

In this video, we will show you how to fix Steam disk write error on Steam

We have mentioned 10 best solutions to resolve the Steam Disk Write Error on Windows 10 PC. Some of the above methods can also be used in Windows 8/8.1 or Windows 7. You can use the above solutions to solve the Disk Write Error easily and efficiently.