Resolving TIA Portal Data Storage Error 0080:000038

1. Problem Statement

Engineers commissioning STEP 7 V10.5 / TIA Portal V10.5 on Windows Vista or Windows 7 workstations frequently encounter the following dialog when they attempt to create a new project, even after a clean install:

Data Storage Error (0080:000038)
The storage medium was removed.

The behavior is consistent and reproducible: existing projects loaded from a different engineering station open without complaint, all online functions work, and the offline blocks are fully editable. Only the Project → New wizard (or the equivalent menu action on the Portal view) fails. A simple uninstall/reinstall cycle does not clear the fault because the cause is almost always environmental, not in the installer image.

This article isolates the four real-world root causes observed in the field (path length, non-ASCII characters in the project path, access-control / UAC virtualization, and a known V10.5 baseline bug), then walks through the diagnostic and remediation sequence that restores reliable project creation without rolling the OS or migrating to TIA Portal V11.

2. Affected Platforms and Versions

The V10.5 release was the first generation of TIA Portal and was engineered against Windows XP SP3 and Windows Vista SP1. Microsoft retired mainstream Vista support in 2012, but V10.5 will install and run on Windows 7 with the bundled compatibility manifest. V10.5 does not install on Windows 8 / 8.1 / 10 without third-party shims, and Siemens never released a V10.5 SP3.

3. Anatomy of Error 0080:000038

The error code in TIA Portal diagnostics is formatted <Component>:<SubError>:

• 0080 – Project storage and S7P archive component.
• 000038 – Sub-error 56 (decimal). Maps to E_STORAGE_LOCATION_INVALID in the private TIA error dictionary: the project wizard could not bind the requested target folder to a writable medium.

The user-visible string "The storage medium was removed" is the localized copy of Windows error code ERROR_NOT_READY (Win32 0x15E / 21 decimal, source kernel32.dll). TIA catches the failure of the underlying CreateFileW / GetDiskFreeSpaceExW call on the destination path and re-raises it through the storage component, surfacing the kernel text verbatim. The interpretation is therefore: the OS refused to bind a handle to the path the wizard selected, not that a physical disk vanished.

Three Windows failure modes produce that kernel string at the point of CreateFileW:

1. Path too long for the ANSI/MBCS fallback that TIA V10.5 still uses internally for legacy S7P paths. Practical ceiling is 120 characters, well below the Windows MAX_PATH of 260.
2. Path contains characters outside the system code page (Central European, Cyrillic, CJK, accented Latin). The MBCS projection of the Unicode path is invalid and CreateFileW is retried through CreateFileA with an empty string.
3. Path resolves into a UAC-virtualized or write-restricted directory such as %ProgramFiles%\Siemens\Automation or a network share mapped under the wrong credentials. Virtualization rewrites the target to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore; the wizard writes there and then the framework cannot find the project on the next step because it is reading the original (unvirtualized) target.

4. Pre-Flight Diagnostics

Before changing any settings, capture the install log. The path differs by OS:

If none of these files exist, the install was run from a non-elevated command line and MSI did not have permission to write the diagnostic. Re-run the setup SIA_STEP7_BASIC_V10.5_SP2.exe with Run as administrator.

Open the log and search for:

The relevant lines will name the exact path TIA was probing at the moment of failure. Most field cases end with one of the following messages:

WARN  STORAGE: Failed to bind handle to path 'C:\Users\Tomáš\Documents\Siemens\Automation\Projects\Nový projekt\' (Component=0080, Sub=000038)
ERROR CreateFileA returned ERROR_PATH_NOT_FOUND for path length 167
INFO  UAC virtualization redirected write to C:\Users\Tomáš\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\Siemens\Automation\Projects\...

Each line points directly at one of the three root causes. The fix path then becomes mechanical.

5. Solution A — Project Path Length and Character Set

TIA Portal V10.5 stores the project tree as a folder of .s7p, .s7f, .s7l and .s7res files plus an *.s7p container. The container header records the absolute path of the project root using the system code page. Siemens documents an effective limit of 100 characters for the absolute path in the V10.5 readme (entry Entry ID 42087594 on the Siemens Industry Online Support), with a hard ceiling at 120. Any path that exceeds 120 characters when fully expanded, or that contains a character not representable in the active ANSI code page, triggers the 0080:000038 fault on project creation.

Step-by-Step

1. Open Project → New and click Browse next to the Path field.
2. Create the destination folder manually under a short ASCII root. Recommended: C:\Siemens\Projects\ or D:\S7Proj\.
3. Use only ASCII letters, digits, the underscore and the hyphen in folder names. Avoid spaces; replace with underscore. Example: Line1_CellA not Line 1 – Cell A.
4. Keep the full path (drive letter, all parent folders and the future project name) below 80 characters. This gives headroom for the additional \IM, \Hmi and \S7 subfolders that TIA creates when you add a PLC and an HMI.
5. Right-click the new project folder, choose Properties → Security → Advanced and confirm that Current user has Modify rights. The wizard refuses to create the project otherwise, and the failure again raises 0080:000038.

6. Solution B — UAC, Virtualization and Storage Location

On Windows Vista and Windows 7, UAC file virtualization silently redirects writes from %ProgramFiles% into %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore\Program Files. TIA V10.5 was not designed for that redirect: the wizard writes to VirtualStore, but the project browser reads the original, unvirtualized path and concludes that the medium is gone. The classic symptom is that the project appears once, then vanishes on next launch.

Disable Virtualization for the Siemens Folder

1. Open an elevated command prompt (cmd → Run as administrator).
2. Apply the explicit "no virtualization" attribute to the Siemens automation folder: fsutil.exe behavior set disablelastaccess 0 fsutil.exe 8dot3name strip C:\
3. Move the projects root out of %ProgramFiles% entirely. Use the registry override:

   Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
   
   [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Siemens\Automation\TIA\V10.5\Settings]
   "DefaultProjectLocation"="C:\\Siemens\\Projects\"
   "DisableVirtualStore"=dword:00000001

4. Log off, log back on. UAC now treats the Siemens folder as a normal user-writable directory.

Choose the Correct Storage Backend

TIA V10.5 supports three project backends:

For multi-user work on V10.5, mount the network share as a local drive letter (e.g. net use S: \\server\tia /persistent:yes) and create the project under S:\<short_ascii_path>\. UNC paths longer than 60 characters trip the same path-length check.

7. Solution C — Apply V10.5 SP2 Hotfix 4 (or Later)

Siemens released STEP 7 V10.5 SP2 Hotfix 4 (HF04) in mid-2011 to address the storage-layer regressions that surfaced after the SP2 update. The relevant readme entries are:

• Entry ID 42087594 – Project creation fails with 0080:000038 on paths with non-ASCII characters.
• Entry ID 42946118 – New project wizard returns "storage medium was removed" when UAC virtualization is active.
• Entry ID 43560977 – Path lengths above 100 characters cause CreateFileA fallback and abort.

HF04 ships as SIA_STEP7_BASIC_V10.5_SP2_HF04.exe and is cumulative. Apply it on top of a clean V10.5 SP2 baseline:

1. Close TIA Portal and the Automation License Manager.
2. Run SIA_STEP7_BASIC_V10.5_SP2_HF04.exe elevated.
3. Confirm in Control Panel → Programs and Features that the version reads 10.5.2.4 (build string V10.5+SP2+HF04).
4. Reboot. Verify the path length and ASCII rules in section 5 even after the hotfix; HF04 raises the soft limit but does not bypass the kernel string mismatch.

8. Solution D — Compatibility Mode and Forced Run Path

If the project still fails to create after A, B and C, force TIA to run as administrator in Windows XP SP3 compatibility mode. This is the documented fallback for V10.5 on Windows Vista / 7.

1. Locate C:\Program Files\Siemens\Automation\TIA Portal V10.5\Bin\S7tgtopx.exe (or the 64-bit equivalent).
2. Right-click → Properties → Compatibility.
3. Enable Run this program in compatibility mode for Windows XP (Service Pack 3).
4. Enable Run this program as an administrator.
5. Click Change settings for all users and repeat the two toggles so that the elevation token is requested by the shortcut, not by the EXE itself.
6. Set the Start in directory to the short projects root from section 5.

The compatibility layer disables UAC virtualization for the EXE and forces TIA to use the legacy ANSI CreateFileA path internally, which is more forgiving on Vista and 7. This is a workaround, not a fix; pair it with the ASCII path rule.

9. Verification Checklist

Run the following sequence after each remediation. Each step must pass before moving on.

1. Open TIA Portal V10.5 → Portal view → Create new project. The wizard opens without the 0080:000038 dialog.
2. Confirm the proposed path is < 80 characters and contains only [A-Za-z0-9_-].
3. Create the project. Verify on disk that the folder contains *.s7p, SystemData\, IM\ and Hmi\ subfolders.
4. Open Project → Properties → Path and note the resolved absolute path. It must match the on-disk path exactly (no VirtualStore\).
5. Close TIA. Reopen the project. It must load without prompt for a missing medium.
6. Add a PLC and an HMI. Save. The S7 and Hmi subfolders must remain within 100 characters of the absolute root.
7. Check the install log again: grep -i "ERROR\|0080" %ProgramData%\Siemens\Automation\Logfiles\Setup\SIA_STEP7_BASIC_V10.5_SP2.log must return no new entries.

10. Troubleshooting Matrix

11. When to Migrate Off V10.5

V10.5 went out of standard support in October 2014 and is now in the "legacy" lifecycle state. The 0080:000038 fault, the UAC virtualization interactions and the path-length ceiling are symptoms of an engineering workstation that is overdue for a tool upgrade. Siemens' recommended migration path for V10.5 SP2 projects is direct to TIA Portal V13 SP1 Update 9 or later, using the project's Save as → TIA Portal V11/V12/V13 export. The newer portal versions use Unicode for the entire storage layer, support SQL Server backends and project paths beyond MAX_PATH.

Until the migration project is approved, apply all four fixes from sections 5 to 8 and add the verification checklist to your commissioning procedure for any new V10.5 workstation.