Disk IO failure.

**riley65** · January 05, 2012, 05:55 PM

Hey everyone. I'm trying to download Kingdoms off of steam and when it's fully downloaded it just pauses. If I try to play I get "An error has occurred while updating Medieval 2 II: Total War Kingdoms (Disk IO Failure). I used to have Kingdoms installed and it ran fine. I'm just wondering if there's any way to fix this without trying a redownload since it takes forever. Also I can't find any of the kingdoms files including Kingdoms.exe in the steam folder which leads me to believe it's not downloading right at all.

**riley65** · January 05, 2012, 06:00 PM

Just an edit here. Found my kingdom files. They were hiding out in my staging folder. O.o

**irishron** · January 05, 2012, 06:40 PM

Does ti wrk if you move the m into the Medieval II total War folder?

Have you tried to verify the game cache?

did you buy Medieval2 off Steam, also?

**riley65** · January 06, 2012, 08:48 AM

No it didn't work when I moved the files, verified the cache and it said it had all files and yes I have both medieval 2 and kingdoms off of steam. Trying a re-install to see if it goes in the right folder now.

**riley65** · January 06, 2012, 08:52 AM

Re-install just shows steam finding files for kingdoms after deleting them and still downloading about 2.4G to the staging folder.

**PoleCat** · January 07, 2012, 01:59 AM

Originally Posted by riley65

Re-install just shows steam finding files for kingdoms after deleting them and still downloading about 2.4G to the staging folder.

Could you give us the total path to this "staging" folder (as in C:\yada\yada\boom)? It has to be some kind of Temp folder unless I'm mistaken. Something is not kosher with your install.

Answer this question - you say you had Kingdoms installed before and that it worked. Was it on that system or is this a new system altogether? If you're trying to install a Steam download to a system that previously had a disc install then I would expect some kind of trouble if you didn't completely uninstall the previous versions of M2 and Kingdoms.

You may need to delve into the Registry to fix your current problems if you had M2 installed before. Let us know what your situation is so that we can dial down on this one. Good luck!

**riley65** · January 09, 2012, 03:47 PM

Steam's on an external drive so the total path is K:\new folder\steamapps\staging. Kingdoms was installed on this system previously. I'm still using the same computer just re-installing it. Also I have both medieval 2 and kingdoms on steam. Never had a disc copy.

Also for irishron here is my Dxdiag:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

**PoleCat** · January 09, 2012, 11:12 PM

Originally Posted by riley65

...I'm trying to download Kingdoms off of steam and when it's fully downloaded it just pauses. If I try to play I get "An error has occurred while updating Medieval 2 II: Total War Kingdoms (Disk IO Failure). I used to have Kingdoms installed and it ran fine....(EDITORIAL - and the re-download did not work as intended either- PC)

Originally Posted by riley65

Steam's on an external drive so the total path is K:\new folder\steamapps\staging. Kingdoms was installed on this system previously. I'm still using the same computer just re-installing it. Also I have both medieval 2 and kingdoms on steam. Never had a disc copy.

A question. When you originally bought M2 off of Steam did you buy the Gold Edition?

Another question. When you tried to re-install Kingdoms did you choose the straight Kingdoms expansion?

The reason I ask is that the Gold Edition of M2 has a flaw in the installer that only allows it to output the path to C:\ drive. I'm betting that neither Steam or Creative Assembly bothered to change the installer for the Steam download - you're getting the unadulterated download of Kingdoms and it may not be compatible with your version of M2.

In that staging folder is there a folder that has its own installer? It would be buried - and I have to admit I can't remember where - but if there is an installer somewhere in that download then try running that. It's the old standard procedure for circumventing the bad installer that came with the Gold release. The original Kingdoms release allowed for output to a different path than C:\ if IIRC.

The only other option I see otherwise would be a manual uninstall of M2 and Kingdoms via the Reg and through the Steam Reg keys as well. Any insight would help. Good luck!

**riley65** · January 10, 2012, 06:01 AM

I didn't buy the gold edition I bought both games seperately but I did have them installed on my harddrive originally before I moved them to my larger terrabyte external. Maybe I need to move it back over for the download?

**irishron** · January 06, 2012, 09:15 AM

If if does not work this time, post your dxdiag.

**irishron** · January 09, 2012, 05:15 PM

External drive would explain the i/o error as it's not keeping up.

Vista = have you checked user\username\appdata\virtualsore? It's hidden so you have to unhide all files and folders to find it.

Try updating the High Definition Audio codecs at www.realtek.com.tw. Yours are over three years old.

**irishron** · January 10, 2012, 08:16 AM

Can Steam find its install on the external? If so, have defragged the external? If it's badly fragmented, this could also be messing up the download trying to find enough free contiguous space for it.

**riley65** · January 10, 2012, 01:42 PM

Yes Steam can find the install and yes I recently defragged. Seems like steam is finding roughly 2/3 of the files it needs for kingdoms even after deletion since it's only downloading about 3.4G out of a usual 9.8. Will try a download with Steam moved onto my D drive. That might prevent Steam from reading files already existing or failing that I'll do a full manual un-install.

**irishron** · January 10, 2012, 02:19 PM

Which ever way finally works. Good luck with this.

**riley65** · January 14, 2012, 08:48 AM

Great news! I finally got it to work! Had to delete my whole Medieval 2 folder in steamapps then redownload and it finally downloaded right. Thanks for all the help when I was trying to solve this. Now I'm gonna go enjoy some Third Age Total War 3.1