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Lost Ark guide
Image via Smilegate

How to fix the Disk Write Error for Lost Ark

Don't let a little hard drive issue stop you from saving the world.

Lost Ark is drawing a lot of new players to it. So much so that the developers have had to create a whole new region for Central EU to help lighten the load for servers. With that kind of popularity, the game is going to run into a significant number of issues at launch. Some of these bugs will be specific to Lost Ark, but many will be a problem that Steam users might already be familiar with.

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For players who are running into a Disk Write Error while downloading or installing updates for Lost Ark, the problem is usually with Steam rather than the game itself. The first solution is, as with most problems with computers, to turn it off and back on again. Sounds obvious, but it works more often than you think.

Clear Download Cache

If a reboot doesn’t clear the problem, then the next step is to clear the download cache in the Steam settings. You can do this by:

  • Click Steam in the lop left of the window.
  • Open the Settings window.
  • Go to the Downloads tab.
  • Click “Clear Download Cache.”
  • Select OK.

This will cause Steam to relaunch, so don’t do it if you have other downloads happening. Once you’ve logged back into Steam, try redownloading Lost Ark.

Change Your Firewall Settings

If this doesn’t work, the problem could be with your firewall or anti-virus settings. You may need to create an exception for either Steam or Lost Ark in your computer’s settings or you can run Steam as an Administrator, which allows it to bypass these issues entirely.

Change Where Steam Saves Games

If you have multiple storage drives, then it is possible that Steam is trying to save the game files to a drive that is in Read-Only mode. This is rare but can happen, especially if you’ve just installed a new drive. To fix this:

  • Go to the Steam window and open the Downloads menu as detailed above.
  • Click on Steam Library Folders. This will show you the default Steam installation path.
  • Click the “Add Library Folder” icon to create a new path to the drive you want future installations to go to. Make sure that his path is on a drive that has Read/Write permissions.
  • Once this path is created, click the “…” button and highlight “Make Default” to make it the default installation path for future downloads.

You may need to restart your computer again to make sure that the changes take properly. Once you boot back up, this should fix the problem. Downloading Lost Ark again should remove the error.


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Author
Image of Trent Cannon
Trent Cannon
Trent is a Freelance Writer at Gamepur. He has contributed news, guides, and reviews about video games for over a decade and has a special place in his heart for JRPGs, Splatoon, Sea of Thieves, and anything that's a bit silly, really.