I have an 160 GB hard drive and recently I started getting delayed write
failed error messages when I was copying files over. Since my 200 GB drive
died a few days earlier(unrealted) I had just ordered a 300 GB Maxtor drive
so I started coying over my files since I didn't trust the drive. When I did
this, some files would give me a path too deep error while other files were
fine. It was always the same files that had the problem and in the same
place during the transfer. I have switched cables and IDE controllers but
that didn't help. It sounds to me like the drive is toast, but I think WD
will say its an OS problem. Any advice on what to do.

I was just looking at my questions to WD and apparently when my first 200 GB
drive died 2 years ago, I also had problems with this same drive having
delayed write failed error messages. I wonder if this is related to me
disconnecting the other drive (they were on the same IDE cable)

Diagnostic software for your drive is here
http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp?swid=1

Rotorhead87 wrote:

I already used that, and it didn't show anything up.

I don't think this is related to hardware problems with your new drive. I'm
not going to be able to help solve the problem, but I'm going to be watching
this thread because I have the same problem.

If you watch closely, you'll probably find that it happens only when a large
file is being copied. A movie or something. I have a PC that I set up in my
living room for multimedia stuff and I get this error message about 30% of
the time when I copy movies (700 MB) to it. I'm using a wireless network.

I think the path too deep message is an erroneous message. I get this one
along with a few others, but the path too deep message seems to occur if the
combined length of both paths is > 127 characters. (I can't confirm this).

When I do the same copy from a Command prompt, I get a slightly different
message about a semaphore not being set. I think some timeout is occuring. I
just can't figure out why it's intermittent.

Good luck!

Well, I actually get the path too deep error messages on 100k pictures
sometimes, so its not the size of the file. I'm going to fiddle around with
the controller card and see if that might be a problem.