iTunes 10.7 Gear Driver Install Failure

Question

iTunes 10.7 Gear Driver Install Failure

All attempts to install iTunes 10.7 fail during Gear driver installation with the following error:

"Error writing to file: C:\Program Data\34BE82C4-E596-4e99-A191-52C6199EBF69\GEARDIFx.exe. Verify that you have access to that directory."

This same error occurs when installing drivers downloaded directly from the Gear Software site also.

NO GEAR DRIVERS ARE CURRENTLY INSTALLED -- THERE ARE NO GEAR REGISTRY ENTRIES.

This occurs even if all iTunes software is removed, the temp directory cleared, and all other suggestions on the iTunes support site followed.

Yes, I have verified that I have access to the directory (even though C:\Program Data\34BE82C4-E596-4e99-A191-52C6199EBF69\GEARDIFx.exe is not a directory that exists during the installation).

I have full access to the C:\Program Data directory.

Posted on Sep 18, 2012 9:32 PM

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Answer 1

b noir

Level 9

72,336 points

Sep 18, 2012 11:34 PM in response to NewiPhoneUser02

"Error writing to file: C:\Program Data\34BE82C4-E596-4e99-A191-52C6199EBF69\GEARDIFx.exe. Verify that you have access to that directory."

That one's consistent with disk/file damage. The first thing I'd try with that is running a disk check (chkdsk) over your C drive.

XP instructions in the following document: How to perform disk error checking in Windows XP

Vista instructions in the following document: Check your hard disk for errors

Windows 7 instructions in the following document: How to use CHKDSK (Check Disk)

Select both Automatically fix file system errors and Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors, or use chkdsk /r (depending on which way you decide to go about doing this). You'll almost certainly have to schedule the chkdsk to run on startup. The scan should take quite a while ... if it quits after a few minutes or seconds, something's interfering with the scan.

Does the chkdsk find/repair any damage? If so, can you get an install to go through properly afterwards?

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Answer 2

Sep 19, 2012 3:55 PM in response to NewiPhoneUser02

Did u get this fixed? I'm seeing the same issue on my windows 7

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Answer 3

Sep 19, 2012 8:31 PM in response to sarangrao

Unfortunately, it did not solve my issue. Although there were in fact corrections made to the filesystem by CHKDSK, afterwards the problem remains.

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Answer 4

jdgilman

Level 1

0 points

Sep 20, 2012 10:06 PM in response to NewiPhoneUser02

I have the same problem. Windows 7 x64 Professional. I have 10.7 installed on another Windows x64 system so I tried to grab the missing GEARDIFx.exe from that install. Unfortunately I was not able to get past the system permissions on the C:\Program Data\{34BE82C4-E596-4e99-A191-52C6199EBF69} folder.

I'm not sure what would have happened in this case, but I do wonder what the real issue is. The systems are different. The problem child is a Lenovo W520. The one that I have 10.7 installed on is a Dell XPS with Home Edition. I don't think this problem is about the OS or the hardware, but I sure want to get 10.7 installed before I try to upgrade my 4S to iOS 6.

Any suggestions?

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Answer 5

Sep 21, 2012 8:46 AM in response to NewiPhoneUser02

I have a Lenovo and have the exact same problem

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Answer 6

Sep 21, 2012 9:41 AM in response to NewiPhoneUser02

I finally resolved this issue on my own. Whether or not the steps I took will help others, I do not know. Apparrently the resolution is either the steps I took, or some unknown subset -- so here they are:

1. Run CHKDSK on the drive: set it to automatically fix filesystem errors, and scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors (in my case there were corrections made to the file system, but this alone did not resolve the issue).

2. Turn off any running backup software. In my case Symantec's NetBackup Desktop Agent was running because my company installs the darn thing.

3. Install AS ADMINISTRATOR the latest GEAR drivers directly from the Gear Software Site: http://www.gearsoftware.com/support/drivers.php

4. Install AS ADMINISTRATOR iTunes

(When installing the Gear drivers and iTunes, download the installation images do your local driver somewhere, then right click on the installation images and choose "Run as administrator".)

When I did all of the following in this list -- the installation worked. Don't know what the real problem was. The former error, by the way, implies that there is some sort of access issue in the ProgramData directory. I don't know why. It would be great; however, if folks who write these installers would spend a bit more time on error handling -- these ambiguous messages are nearly worthless. This is lazy programming at its finest.

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Answer 7

jdgilman

Level 1

0 points

Sep 23, 2012 8:12 AM in response to NewiPhoneUser02

This helped me as well. While nothing came up from the CHKDSK what I finally realized was that McAfee "Access Protection" seemed to be where the permissions was coming from. So I disabled that and ran iTunes64 installer. This time GEARDIFx.exe installed correctly and all is well. I also was able to upgrade to iOS 6 on my 4S iPhone without incident now that I have iTunes 10.7.021 installed correctly.

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Answer 8

mixeduse

Level 1

0 points

Sep 23, 2012 9:50 AM in response to NewiPhoneUser02

Just run the McAfee control panel and temporarily disable Access Protection

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