Possible to enable Write Cache when SMART is BAD?

[NRA]

Hi guys)

It appears I've got a couple of 2.5" and 3.5" HDD's with BAD SMART (shocked, damaged, truncated, poor PWM, critical parameters fault and so on) which still keep working alright as a non-important data storage, but have WRITE CACHE disabled (perhaps, to mitigate damage) what affect the performance badly. As far as many programs let enabling this parameter only temporarily (till reboot) and DCO (configuration overlay) has no such option, I tired tweaking it via HDAT2 which has two direct options to no avail. Actually, one is rejected and the other asks for some bit patterns, and when I check Force Enabled it also rejects. Not sure about other software though.

Therefore comes my question: whether it's possible to force Write Cache enabled; if no then is there some piece of software (as a driver or an overlay) which can simulate or--even temporarily--enable this feature?

TY

[NRA]

Finally, unlike many other free, vendor-specific and commercial software HDAT2BETA (and newer) can easily *permanently* set Write Cache even for BAD drivers no problem.
Highly recommended!

Indeed, sometimes it might be risky--as always)

[kerr]

I have same problem, can't force write cache on my old WDC hdd with HDAT2 5.0. NRA, Can you tell me where the HDAT2 Beta is avaible?

[NRA]

Hello, kerr.

You'd rather refer to the author's site at http://hdat2.com/ and create a relevant topic or ask him.

Not sure about WD, yet I was able to do the trick under *nix via

Code:

hdparm -k1 /dev/sda
hdparm -W1 /dev/sda

Good luck)