Delayed Write Fail, Policies window greyed out

[Dumb_Question]

Not to begin at the beginning, to make it simple, I have come up a Windows 'Delayed Write Failed' error (test writing a 60KB file wasn't a problem  , running HDTune error scans lead to failure, Delayed Write Failed, and subsequent detection of bad blocks starting at different places depending on the scan - i.e' not reproducible  .  I have previously tried this disk as an external USB disk with similar results).

A Microsoft kb article I was reading suggested changing the Policies for this disk to Disable Write Caching to circumvent this problem.  So I go to the Disk Policies window for this disk, and deselect the enable Write Caching radio button, and click on 'OK'.

Then I noticed that having done this the disk temperature of this disk (HD1) in Speedfan was 0C which was silly  (it had been reading 32C or something remotely sensible.) [similarly with HDTune], so I thought I would change things back to get to the situation I was in before...but now the Policies window is greyed out, with seemingly 'optimize for performance' and 'enable write caching' selected !  So I can't change policies now.   

Dumb_Question
19.June.2014
Compaq Presario S5160UK DT261A under XP/SP3
Processor - Celeron 2.7 GHz
Motherboard - MSI MS-6577 v2.1
RAM - 1GB + 512MB (1GB +1GB max) DDR PC2700
PSU - Octigen 300W model 10270PSOTG ('upgraded' from original Bestec 250W PSU [in 2011?])
Nvidia GeForce 6200 graphics card in AGP slot.

[Allan]

Replace the drive.

[BC_Programmer]

Echoing the above- the drive is almost certainly dying and the longer you wait the less likely you will be to save your data to a more reliable drive.

The only other alternatives would be a possibly bad SATA cable or a failing power supply. The latter is possible but I wouldn't go banking on that being the problem. Basically if the System is getting unreliable power, the Memory may be prone to corruption. As a result File system operations may detect errors or fail where there are no physical problems. This is often the cause of inconsistent detection of bad blocks.

Either way, fiddling about with options and settings will not fix the issue. The issue is either a failling Hard disk drive or a failing Power supply. It is difficult to point direct at one or another I think, at least given what you've described, but  I would tend to assume Hard drives were failing, particularly if you aren't having any issues elsewhere that would seem to imply the Power Supply.

[DaveLembke]

You can get a used drive cheap to replace this drive if you dont already have one. I bought my daughter a used 120GB IDE Seagate HDD for $9.99 with free shipping from newegg and she uses this drive daily with no problems. The drive is not covered by a warranty beyond like 30 days, but is better than stuffing a $50 drive into a desktop computer that gets bumped around in her room etc.

They have a 160GB for like $17 here that is used. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148823

They also have where you can buy a 1 year warranty on the drive for like $5.99, but as cheap as it is, I'd just buy it and take a try at it if your looking for a cheap drive replacement and dont have one on hand.

For the fact that you tested this as an external with same results I am thinking that you might have a spare drive to use, but if not, I have had good luck with used drives from Newegg for both HDD and SSDs.

Looking into your motherboard here: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00019945&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en

You are pretty much stuck having to buy used drives if you need one or attempting to use an IDE to SATA converter, but if you used a IDE to SATA converter your system might only be able to address up to 137GB depending on the IDE controller
I had a similar aged system with the Athlon XP 2800+ and the IDE controller was not limited to 137GB, so I was able to install a 160GB drive to it. They also have IDE SATA 1.5 controllers that can be installed to give this system SATA 1.5 support, but I wouldnt waste any money and troubles into upgrading to a slow 1.5 SATA drive when a ATA 100 is probably fine for this Celeron.

If you want better performance out of this, I'd install a Pentium 4 in place of the Celeron. I bought a socket 478 Pentium 4 3.0Ghz HT for $4.99 with $3 shipping for my friends computer who was running a single core Celeron D, and this brought some new life into his old eMachine inexpensively.

[BC_Programmer]

You are pretty much stuck having to buy used drives if you need one or attempting to use an IDE to SATA converter, but if you used a IDE to SATA converter your system might only be able to address up to 137GB depending on the IDE controller
I had a similar aged system with the Athlon XP 2800+ and the IDE controller was not limited to 137GB, so I was able to install a 160GB drive to it. They also have IDE SATA 1.5 controllers that can be installed to give this system SATA 1.5 support, but I wouldnt waste any money and troubles into upgrading to a slow 1.5 SATA drive when a ATA 100 is probably fine for this Celeron.

The 137GB Barrier was present in ATA-5 because the LBA addressing specifications for ATA-5 used 28-bit addressing. ATA-6 extended the LBA interface to use 48-bit addressing, allowing 281,474,976,710,656 sectors making the grand total size with 512 bytes per sector of ATA-6 144 Petabytes.

A System with a BIOS dated later than around September 2002 or so will usually have a IDE Host Adapter that supports ATA-6. (if it indeed has a IDE Host adapter).

[Dumb_Question]

Thank you for your replies.

I have reported mainly testing a SATA drive connected to my motherboard (which DaveLembke correctly, I believe, identified and managed to find the appropriate page on the HP website) by an IDE to SATA adapter  (I did manage to find one which would function with the SATA drive as slave to [system drive] master)

I also did some tests connecting the drive to the PC by a SATA to USB adapter, but as I have had some problems with HDTune with this and other drives (drive turning off and from that point all blocks detected as bad) I decided to connect this drive internally after testing it externally gave poor results.  Connecting the drive internally also enabled me to try a low-level format of the drive using Seatools for DOS.

By connecting other drives both internally and externally to this computer of capacities 320GB and 500GB and seeing them install to Windows XP and running Seatools for Windows successfully, I assume my PC has no problem with 137GB limit [I haven't actually tried writing/reading real data with any internally connected disk filled to more than 137GB but I have a WD external disk that's ~75% full with two 195GB partitions].  I think I bought this PC new in Jan 2004.

I have a P4 SL6PG (3.06GHz, HT) which I plan to use in the future (i.e. when I get round to it !) I also have a 1GB DIMM for this PC to bring it up to  maximum supported memory.

Dumb_Question
21.June.2014
Compaq Presario S5160UK DT261A under XP/SP3
Processor - Celeron 2.7 GHz
Motherboard - MSI MS-6577 v2.1
RAM - 1GB + 512MB (1GB +1GB max) DDR PC2700
PSU - Octigen 300W model 10270PSOTG ('upgraded' from original Bestec 250W PSU [in 2011?])
Nvidia GeForce 6200 graphics card in AGP slot.

[DaveLembke]

I have a P4 SL6PG (3.06GHz, HT) which I plan to use in the future (i.e. when I get round to it !) I also have a 1GB DIMM for this PC to bring it up to  maximum supported memory.

Be sure to check to see if your bios version is correct for the 3.06Ghz P4 HT before swapping out the Celeron. Many computers of that period required a later BIOS flash to use the maximum supported processors.

The eMachine that my friend has claimed to support up to a 3.4Ghz Pentium 4 socket 478, but the only 3.4Ghz CPU that was also socket 478 when many more are socket 775 was like $30, and for an extra 400Mhz of processing power and heat creation likely requiring a better heatsink than that of the cast aluminum block with copper slug core, the 3.0Ghz was the best bang for the buck about 6 months ago.

With the 3.06Ghz you will notice that it will multitask way better.

I also saw that you have a GeForce 6200 .... is this GPU plenty enough for your needs or?

Its a shame that the AGP slot is only a 4x slot and not an 8x, but if you need better GPU power you should be able to team up that 3.06Ghz P4 HT with like a GeForce 7600GT AGP card ... I think the 7600 is about the max you will get before bottleneck of the 4x slot and the 3.06Ghz P4 HT CPU. You can also use some 8x AGP cards that are better GPU's that are backwards compatible to 4x slot, but with only 4x your not going to be able to tap into the full power of the card due to the limited bus of 4x AGP.

Given that this system is as old as it is, I wouldnt invest any large amount of money into it, but $5 or $10 here or there for a few things is probably worth it as long as the system is a good match for whatever application you have for it.

Playing older games your all set, but playing any newer titles you can run into troubles with low FPS if it even runs at all. My daughters prior computer was a Pentium 4 2.8Ghz HT and it had an XFX Geforce 6200 256MB Video Card in it as seen here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150107   

I had to also place a slot fan next to it as seen here http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?gclid=CK354fjzi78CFZSEfgodu0IAOg&Item=N82E16835200018R&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-_-pla-_-Case+Fans-_-N82E16835200018R&ef_id=UZaSmgAAADBskCuL:20140621212517:s to keep the passive heatsink cool as for the trouble with many passive heatsink type video cards is that they will cook themselves to death if used for gaming and inadequate airflow, but GPU temps never went above 57C with the slot fan helping to pull air across the passive heatsink and I made a air RAM Shroud for the video card and slot fan so that air from within the case was drawn thru the passive heatsink and then vented out of the case, and when running games you could feel the heat flowing out the slot fan from the GPU. She was able to play World of Warcraft on this system, but the GeForce 6200 was struggling with the graphics settings set to the lowest Poor Slider selection with 15-20 fps and the graphics were great for up close objects, but there was a haze in the background as for the game was set to the lowest settings which meant that it only renders what is critical which is within say 30 feet or so of your character.

Are you playing any modern games with the Geforce 6200?

[Dumb_Question]

Thank you for that informative post.

I don't know what CPUs the BIOS supports, it doesn't seem to say in the BIOS; the only information I have to hand is the m/b spec.  Somehow I have the impression that it will support up to 3.06GHz HT P4.  CPU is fan-cooled and the Celeron never gets above 35C with the fan full on,  GPU reaches 44C, but it might need cleaning out.  System (Northbridge ??) temp also reaches the 40s.   

I got my GeForce 6200 (which incidentally is an XFX one) a good few years ago to enable me to play a simple game (I thought) called (Sid Meier's) Pirates! because the on-board graphics couldn't handle it and the 6200 was about the cheapest card that could !
I have now acquired additionally a Ge6800GT and a Radeon X800XL (to be used either/or not simultaneously ! I need to check if my case is big enough to put these in), which are fan cooled units, and PSUs up to 600W.  I have installed a case fan at the rear of the case, and can also place one at the front if necessary. The AGP cards x8 are said to backwards compatible to x4, but as you say the interfaces are not the same speed.

I haven't tried any modern games !  (too many other activities to waste my time on).

I think I've got the parts, but when (if) I assemble them things usually don't work.

Dumb_Question
21.June.2014
Compaq Presario S5160UK DT261A under XP/SP3
Processor - Celeron 2.7 GHz
Motherboard - MSI MS-6577 v2.1
RAM - 1GB + 512MB (1GB +1GB max) DDR PC2700
PSU - Octigen 300W model 10270PSOTG ('upgraded' from original Bestec 250W PSU [in 2011?])
Nvidia GeForce 6200 graphics card in AGP slot.

[DaveLembke]

Bios version can be seen sometimes at post otherwise you have to go into the BIOS and it will show Version or Revision Number info.

As far as:

I have now acquired additionally a Ge6800GT and a Radeon X800XL (to be used either/or not simultaneously !

You will only be able to use one or the other and the 6800GT is probably the better choice.

As for:

I think I've got the parts, but when (if) I assemble them things usually don't work.

Before making changes you can run them past us and we can tell you whether it should work or not if you like.

 I have been mixing and matching computer guts since the mid 1980s ( mainly because back in the 1980s I couldnt afford a new computer so I would take thrown away computers and mix together good parts and make frankenstein computers from multiple donor boxes when computers cost like $3000 for a good IBM), and the Compaq Presario S6030NX that I have is now a mix of more modern guts inside. The only thing original is the case at this point, and to swap out the motherboard into the Presario case you have to re-pin the connector that goes to the power button and Power and HDD LED etc, and I made mine universay by adding the 2 pin connections from a universal junked case from a 486 computer with shrink tube to insulate the cut and reconnected wires. I also added an additional feature back when I use to run it with Windows XP which was I cut the LED from the 2nd NIC and soldered a length of 2 wires leading to a LED that is in the faceplate, so I can see network activity from the front of the computer. Now days though with Windows 7 I have a network monitor that gives me traffic reporting and I can investigate if anything strange is happening such as a free game turning my computer into an upload flooding SEED which caused all other users on my home network to have time outs when trying to get to yahoo etc due to Pando Media Booster installed from a free game. I killed Pando and problem solved. LOL