windows 2000 hard-drive write cache option grayed out....

[KedarWolf]

I have Windows 2000 and a Maxtor 7200 rpm 80 Gig drive running at udma 133. when i install the udma ide controller for my asus P4S8X motherboard, it gives me the option in control panel, system, and my hard-drive to have the write cache enabled... but after several reboots, the option is grayed out and unchecked... i ran the SiSandra benchmark afterwards which stated that my hard-drive performance was suffering, likely because the write cache was disabled... i have updated to the latest ide controller for my harddrive but still grayed out and unchecked... i have linux on a 20 gig ibm harddrive and the write cache is showing enabled in my windows 2000 for that harddrive.. is there a way to fix it, possibly a registry fix, that would enable it again? any help would be appreciated.. i am an avid gamer and performance matters to me...

sincerely,

Kedar...

 

[Dreamland]

Just a guess, KedarWolf, but you may want to take a look at the BIOS settings if you have not done so yet. There's ways to turn off write-caching at the IDE hardware-controller level independent of the O/S or drive controller on some mobo's in the BIOS.

You might boot off the Maxtor utility disk/cd (or download from them) and see if you have an option to enable/disable write caching at the drive-controller level. This isn't exactly the same as W2K O/S level or IDE-level caching as I understand them, but they may be related - the drive's hardware-level setting may affect everything 'upstream'.