Beware rF2 may bomb on you

[DJCruicky]

So far mine is still working, Touch wood

2nd reintall started having continuous disk write errors. Fearing bad hard drive I retried using new SSD for 3rd attempt.

What were the messages telling you you had hard disk errors? Was it from Windows or Steam?
You might not even have HD problem. If it was like mine, see my 2nd http://screenshots over at S397, for me was not hard drive fault, but simply because the virus checker blocking files from Steam.

but at some point when I ran file validation it locked into a loop I cannot escape from.

When Steam downloads files for rf2, they first get downloaded to a Download folder found at \SteamLibrary\steamapps\downloading\365960\.....
Try deleting files and folders inside that. If the files are Locked from getting deleted (as I found), try rebooting PC and try deleting them again.

If you need to know where Avira keeps it's Exceptions list, I've made a video to show you where to find it.
When you Restore files from Quarantine they get added to this list.

But... I need ideas for a remaining post-reinstall problem. That is, I cannot join the SR4L main race server. Zolder 79 with Beagle runs fine in single player but when I try to join the server it never progresses past the "Joining Server..." screen. Before I click join server I see it display a normal-for-me ping time so I think it has made some basic kind of connection.

I tested connecting to a random public server running a car and track that I have and there was no problem. Joined and did a race start with no prob.

Can you manually install Zolder from the download link at the top of this page, We are running the updated version, maybe you still have old version. Also, having an old version in your package folder stops the track automatically installing from server (rF2 bug). You should not need to do this now as you said you have reinstalled rFactor2 to a different harddrive but is good information for others..

See you on the grid