error 0x80070079: The semaphore timeout period has expired

hello all,

suddenly i am getting the following error message:

error 0x80070079: The semaphore timeout period has expired.

this happens when trying to copy a 4gb file from my c: drive to my d: drive. i had been able to copy the folder (my thunderbird profile) with no problems at all. now its a problem. running windows 7 professional. any help would be appreciated. i have searched around and can't seem to find a solution. i have tried turning windows firewall off. i have tried a clean boot and still the problem persists.

LenG58 said:

hello all,

suddenly i am getting the following error message:

error 0x80070079: The semaphore timeout period has expired.

this happens when trying to copy a 4gb file from my c: drive to my d: drive. i had been able to copy the folder (my thunderbird profile) with no problems at all. now its a problem. running windows 7 professional. any help would be appreciated. i have searched around and can't seem to find a solution. i have tried turning windows firewall off. i have tried a clean boot and still the problem persists.

Much information about the problem and possible fixes was just a google away. This also applies to win 7

Error 0x80070079: The semaphore timeout period has expired

thank you for your reply zigzag. i have been googling and trying to solve this problem for a week now. nothing has worked so far, including the link you refer to.

LenG58 said:

thank you for your reply zigzag. i have been googling and trying to solve this problem for a week now. nothing has worked so far, including the link you refer to.

Sorry. It appears that is a network timeout. Has anything changed since the problem started? (Ie a new router different network config, etc)

others have had this issue over their networks. mine is not a network issue. i am trying to copy a folder from one hard drive to another on the same box. nothing new has been installed on my machine. it was never an issue until the last week or so.

LenG58 said:

others have had this issue over their networks. mine is not a network issue. i am trying to copy a folder from one hard drive to another on the same box. nothing new has been installed on my machine. it was never an issue until the last week or so.

Beginning to become clear.
Does the destination drive have much free space?

has it been de-fragged?

it has about 10% free space. it has not been de-fragged in a long while...

LenG58 said:

it has about 10% free space. it has not been de-fragged in a long while...

Thats the problem.


When defragging you generally need as much free space as there is occupied space to run quickly.

thanks again for taking the time to work with me on this. i have moved the bulk of the data on my internal hard drive d: to an external drive and defragged the d: drive. i now have 80% free space on the d: drive. i tried copying the folder again and still get the same error message. still at square 1

LenG58 said:

it has about 10% free space. it has not been de-fragged in a long while...

sounds like you are suffering from external fragmentation. even though you have 10% free space, the available spaces are not consecutive/continuous. this is most likely whats causing your problems and a defrag could clear that up for you