My Windows XP computer is currently experiencing three problems. First, during Windows logon the computer spontaneously generates an error with the message: “Windows - No Disk. Exception Processing Message c0000013 Parameters 75b67c”. The floppy disk drive usually lights up at this point and if I insert a disk and click “Retry” the message usually disappears. However, occasionally this has no effect and no amount of clicking on “Retry”, “Cancel”, or “Continue” will make the message disappear, and I have to drag it to a corner of the screen to get it out of the way as it will usually persist in whatever application I am working. Second, I have an external USB hard drive of 1 TB capacity which I use to archive various files. Recently I started receiving error messages to the effect that “Windows was unable to save all the data for the file E:\$Mft. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connections. Please try to save the file elsewhere” when accessing files in that drive. This happens after I have been accessing files in the drive for some, but varying, time already. When it occurs I am unable to access files on the drive and the files sometimes even disappear from their folders! At its worst, if I back out and try to re-enter the hard drive I can get a message like “E:\My Music is not accessible. The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable”. However, if I restart the computer the problem fixes itself although sometimes this is only temporary and I have to do it one or more additional times to clear the problem. Now when the computer first starts the Windows Check Disk application runs. It has been directed two or three times at the external hard drive and once so far at the C:\ drive. Lastly, I was having a problem due to a loose wire in the “master” of a pair of satellite speakers. At some point when trying to re-establish the connection the sound from the “slave” of the pair was lost. Rather than have them repaired I purchased an identical replacement speaker set and, although the “master” now works as it should, I get no sound out of the new “slave”. The LED indicating power on the “slave” does not light on either the original or the replacement “slave”. I have also replaced the sub-woofer and the connections. Does this indicate a problem with the sound-card or some other part of the computer’s sound functionality?

The error messages that are appearing about the “Windows – No Disk” and “Windows was unable to save all the data” are quite tricky to diagnose, as they could have any number of possible causes. Therefore, we will go through the most likely and common causes of these problems in the hope that they can be resolved. First dealing with the “Windows – No Disk” error message, this indicates that the operating system is trying to access data contained on external media (such as a floppy disk, CD, DVD, USB drive, etc.) but it is not able to access that data. Usually when this message appears you are able to click the “Cancel” or “Continue” button and the message should disappear (essentially, cancel the data reading operation as you are telling the computer that the media containing the data is not available). However, it seems that this message is rather persistent and will not disappear. Some users have found that this problem can be due to spyware or malware installed on the computer, so we should first check whether any such items have somehow found their way onto your computer. Complete a full system scan using your preferred antivirus software (with the latest antivirus updates). Once that has completed, I suggest that you complete a spyware and adware scan of the computer using Windows Defender (www.microsoft.com/downloads), Ad-Aware Free (www.adaware.com), and Spybot Search & Destroy (www.safer-networking.org) to detect and remove any such items from the computer. Should anything be detected and removed from your computer you should then restart and check whether the problem has been resolved and the error no longer appears on Windows startup.

Should the problem continue we need to track down the program or process which is causing this error message to appear. Since the message appears on startup it would be a valid assumption that the item triggering this message is a startup item in Windows. Therefore, we can attempt to find the catalyst for this error message by disabling all startup items and then re-enabling the items one-by-one until the problem starts occurring again. Go to the “Start” menu > “Run” and type “msconfig” (without the quotes) and click OK. The System Configuration Utility window will appear. This utility allows you to modify various settings in Windows, particularly the startup settings. Click the “Startup” tab. This will list all of the programs and processes which load on Windows startup. Items which are ticked indicate that they will load on Windows startup, whereas items which are unticked have been disabled from loading on startup (for one reason or another). Note down which items are currently ticked (so we know which ones need to be re-enabled later in this procedure). Once those have been noted down, click the “Disable All” button at the bottom of the window. This will disable all items from loading on startup. Click OK to save the changes and then restart the computer. When the computer restarts hopefully the error message should no longer appear, which indicates that one of those startup processes you disabled was causing the problem (be aware, you may receive a message saying the computer is running in Selective Startup mode – you can safely dismiss this message and tick the box not to display again in the future). Return to the System Configuration Utility and re-enable one of the processes, click OK, then restart the computer. Repeat this procedure until the problem re-occurs, at which time you will know the item causing the problem. At this point you should leave that item temporarily disabled and then re-enable the remainder of the items. Now that you know the item causing the problem you should conduct some additional research on that item using Google or your favourite search engine. Once you have determined the nature and purpose of the item, if it’s not needed then you can always leave it disabled or uninstall the related program (which should also uninstall this startup item). However, if you do need the functionality that startup item provides, then you should conduct some more research about instances of the “Windows – No Disk” error caused by this item, as you should be able to get some more useful results relevant to your situation since you now know the exact item and program which is the cause.

Moving onto your next question about the “Windows was unable to save all the data for the file E:\$Mft” error message. This type of error is called a delay write failed error and is related to write caching on hard drives. It will be worthwhile taking a moment to explain the process of write caching. When data is written to the hard drive the operating system makes the write request (along with the data to be written) and then waits on an acknowledgement that the data has been written to the drive. However, because the hard drive is a mechanical device this can take time as the hard drive has to access the correct location for the writing and then actually write the data to the drive. As such, there would be a significant performance hit each time the operating system needed to write data to the drive. Therefore, instead a technique called write caching is used. When the operating system needs to write data to the hard drive it instead writes the data to a high-speed electronic cache on the drive’s circuitry and the acknowledgement of the data being written is returned almost instantly to the operating system. Then, the hard drive writes the data to the actual drive itself in the background without involving the operating system (which considers the data has already been written). This gets around the performance problem we outlined previously. However, when there is a problem with writing the cache back to the drive feedback is given to the operating system and Windows shows the delayed write failed message, as you have been experiencing.

It is possible to disable write caching on the drive, but this is not desirable since it will cause a fairly significant performance hit if you are writing data to the drive. Therefore, we will look at alternative solutions to the problem. We first need to determine whether the problem is the external drive or the computer itself. If you have access to another computer running Windows XP, try connecting your external drive to the computer to check whether you also received the delay write failed message. If so then there is likely something wrong with the external drive that you are using. In the first instance you should try running the Check Disk utility across the drive through Windows. In My Computer, right-click on the drive and select “Properties”. Select the “Tools” tab and then click the “Check Now” button to scan the drive for errors. If this does not fix the problem you may wish to look at purchasing a replacement drive and transfer your data off the old drive onto the new drive sooner rather than later, just in case the external drive is on the way out and fails (since you don’t want to lose all of your data contained on the drive!).

However, should the drive work correctly on another computer then it seems we need to investigate your computer further for the cause of the problem. Some users have reported that upgrading the BIOS on the computer can resolve this problem with external drives. The BIOS is the basic software which runs on the actual motherboard itself and (amongst many other things) mediates low-level communication across external connections such as the USB ports. Since this is mediating the communication between the computer and the USB drive it is entirely possible that there could be an update which will streamline this communication. In the past it was quite a technical process to upgrade the firmware on a motherboard, but newer motherboards often have Windows based utilities to make the process easy. Visit the website or your computer manufacturer (in the case of a brand name computer) or motherboard manufacturer for any available updates and instructions. Make sure you follow the instructions carefully, as doing the procedure incorrectly could have some fairly irreversible consequences.

Due to space constraints I cannot go into further detail about other resolutions for the delay write error problem, but if you find it still continues after trying the above suggestions then please contact me again and we can look further at potential causes of the error.

Finally, we will take a look at the speaker problem you are experiencing. I assume that the speakers come with an external power supply (given that they have an LED, and most speakers these days require external power). As such, the LEDs should usually light even if the speakers are not connected to any audio source. That said, an easy way to determine whether the problem lies with the speakers or the sound card is to connect a set of headphones to the audio jack on the sound card. If you get sound then it seems the speakers are the problem and you may have (as luck would have it) gotten a faulty pair of replacement speakers. That said, if no sound is produced then there seems to be a problem with the sound card.