This post is a follow-up to my post yesterday.  I am consistently having the problem of project saves taking an obscene amount of time. ctrl-S or file/save...no difference.  Executing a "save" starts the system "grinding" through various small screen changes.  After about 16 minutes, the "saving project" bars appears and finishes almost 2 minutes later and the "audio dropout" screen is then displayed.
By the way I have executed all Windows 7 and Webroot clean up/defrag routines with no impact on this problem.  Your help would be greatly appreciated.

It wouldn't hurt to have a look at your system event log to see if there are any disk errors being reported.
 
 

It was suggested in the previous thread http://forum.cakewalk.com/FindPost/3407265 and it is sounding more and more like drive failure
 

Thanks for staying with me guys, especially Scook
BobF - How do I look at my system event log?
New info: I just ran the windows memory test as suggested by Anderton and no problems were found.
Scook - If it's a drive failure what are my options?
Larry

The least cost option is backup and replace the drive
 

Windows 7 Event Viewer info:
 
http://www.sevenforums.co...n-use-windows-7-a.html

Try if applicable:
 
Bounce your audio snap and fx regions to clips (pre render them) before exporting.
AFAIK / have seen, is you will see a lot of mixing down audio "instances" before the big export.
These, especially lots or a long audio snap can cause longer than expected exports.

You are not running more than one anti-virus are you ?
Also you may want to check if your drive controller is set to DMA mode,
http://forum.digital-dige...f-necessary-61905.html
16 mins is a really long time for a save regardless of any settings etc.
Have you run an disk benchmark programs like HD-Tune that look at the health of your HDD ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_zT3D1OmvQ
http://www.hdtune.com/faq_1.html

I'd go through your project, one track at a time and bounce ALL clips to themselves.

You can find a hard disk utility to display SMART params.  It's not perfect and sometimes doesn't show an issue, but if there are issues, it may appear there.
 
This 3rd party windows util looks to cover the params and some tests
http://www.passmark.com/products/diskcheckup.htm
 
Hard disk xfer rate especially seek time is a good indicator.  Check with your hard drive manufacturer.  Most of them have a utility to scan for errors, etc.  Be careful with those since many also offer to format/wipe the drive and you certainly don't want to do that.
 
For example Seagate drives:
http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/item/seatools-win-master/
 
WD:
http://support.wdc.com/KnowledgeBase/answer.aspx?ID=940
 
Hitachi:
https://www.hgst.com/support/hard-drive-support/downloads#DFT
 
actually found a decent listing of hard drive tools here:
http://www.z-a-recovery.com/extras/vendors.aspx