SR1913WM with 2 storage drive issues

[coyote2]

My Compaq Presario SR1913WM has had a couple serious storage drive issues for a long time that I'd rather not keep living with (and unfortunately my other PC is even older and I can't afford to replace either anytime soon).  I would be deeply grateful for any help please.

The issues are with storage drives on (1) onboard USB ports, and (2) onboard SATA ports.

1.

The onboard USB ports work perfectly for devices that aren't storage drives (aka USB thumbdrives). (For example USB input devices, and a USB hub [as long as no thumbdrives are attached to it!], work perfectly.)  However if I boot to MiniXP on Hirens Boot CD, the onboard USB ports work perfectly for everything INCLUDING storage drives (thus this cannot be a hardware issue).

However, MiniXP is the ONLY OS on this SR1913WM on which USB has been able to support storage drives attached via USB for a decade. The issue began while I was using Windows XP (32-bit Pro SP3). It continued with Win8.1(32-bit); even with a fresh clean fully-updated Win8.1(32-bit) install I did recently as a test.  (I have naturally used many differrent HDDs as system/OS drive during this decade.)

I'm using what is AFAIK the latest chipset drivers, GEFORCE 309.08 DRIVER (to which Paul T. kindly pointed out to me at https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Hardware-and-Upgrade-Questions/Win10-install-on-Compaq-Presar... while assiting me in my ultimately and oddly [since others succeeded] futile and exhaustive effort to upgrade the SR1913WM to Win10Pro32-bit.)

Numerous times over the years I've tried uninstalling all the USB entries in the Device Manager and rebooting (to reinstall them), but that never resolves the issue (unsurprising in light of the fresh clean Win8.1 install not resolving the issue).

Re-installing the above-noted GEFORCE 309.08 chipset drivers never works either (either before or after I then run Windows Update and it then each time installs a chipset-related driver).

2.

Onboard SATA issues:

Years ago while running Windows XP (32-bit Pro SP3), I was surprised to find that after the Hitachi HDS723020BLA642 came out (I don't know when that was, but I do recall that when it did there were no HDDs >2TB; I had zero issue with older 2TB HDDs), no  HDD newer than the HDS723020BLA642  (which worked perfectly) would work on the SR1913WM. (And of course since I was using XP I mean newer HDDs of 2TB and smaller.)

Upgrading to Win8.1(32-bit) improved this: now the onboard SATA ports will support any HDD...except those > 2TB (ack!). More odd yet, HDDs > 2TB do work on Win8.1(32-bit) on SATA PCI cards (I've had a pair of 4TB WD Blacks on a SATA PCI card for years, and a 6TB WD Black and a 12 TB WD Gold also work perfectly on a SATA PCI card.  So the OS has no issues with HDD > 2TB in general.)

Workarounds I'd prefer to be free of:

For years to use USB storage devices I attach them to an ancient single core PC and copy the files over the network to/from the SR1913WM's HDDs.

I can simply continue relegating HDDs > 2TB to a SATA PCI card, but of course that is suboptimal since a PCI card's SATA ports will be slower than onboard SATA ports, and that's not preferable for these big HDDs.

FYI the SYMPTOMS of the issues with storage drives are:

1. USB-attached drives: Appear in File Explorer as "Removable Disk"; when selected, error message appears to "Please insert a disk into Removable Disk". (The drives are perfect; they work perfectly on my even older Windows 7Pro32-bit computer, and I've tried multiple drives and reformatting them.)

2. Onboard-SATA-attached hard drive symptoms: Couldn't create folder using File Explorer. Error message:

HD Tune 5.70 reports that their capacities are 1603 GB (the 6TB) and 1005 GB (the 12TB). CHKDSK returns errors:

(The drives are perfect; they work/pass diagnostics tests including the above folder-create-operation and CHKDSK perfectly on my even older Windows 7Pro32-bit computer.)

BIOS is current version 3.11

Full disclosure, I've noticed six motherboad capacitors slightly bulging (circled in purple on attached STOCK photo)(there is no leaking):

[Huffer · Accepted solution]

The bulging caps kind of tell the story. There is just no way to work around an unstable platform which is what you have there and I am frankly amazed you are getting any use out of it at all. 

[DGroves]

and i would not even bother recapping the failed ones as the others are also suspect and will also most likely fail soon

i personally would spend 50/75 dollars for a newer complete used system off ebay

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Optiplex-7010-Intel-Core-i3-3220-3-30GHz-4GB-RAM-DESKTOP-COMPUTER-NO-H...

[coyote2]

1.
Thank you very much for your replies, Huffer and DGroves. I'm also surprised it's working at all despite the non-flat caps (and has been for many years)(though googling tells me that sometimes bulging caps are OK and sometimes flat caps aren't). But the fact is that it is working* and has been for so many years that we shouldn't expect failure soon.

*Except for these two workarounds that I can live with since I need to for now.

2.
Oh, and I forgot to mention how issue 2 actually presents itself/affects me: File Explorer sees the 6TB and 12TB HDDs as their correct capacities, but when my backup program (my only use of these very large drives is as a dedicated backup destination), when the program has copied data equalling the HD Tune-reported capacities (1603 GB and 1005 GB), the backup operation fails with an error that the drive is full.

3.

Perhaps the lack of fix suggestions (about which I'm pleasantly surprised) means that I didn't leave stones unturned that y'all would need to point out to me.  It this remains the case I guess I'll just keep using USB drives either via the other PC or via Hirens' MiniXP, and put HDDs > 2TB on a SATA PCI card.  (And feel lucky that with that, the SR1913WM somehow does everything perfectly!)(Er, not counting a PS/2 port that's loose so I can't use it.  I know, LOL, it's amazing I'm still limping along on this dinosaur...but with a dual-core 2.4GHz chip it's really not too bad.)

[DGroves]

actually the bulging caps meant you should expect failure soon, and you are allready having issues

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

however it's your choice to ignore this. but please do not post in this forum at a later date asking for help recoving data from your drives when something else happens

[coyote2]

"actually the bulging caps meant you should expect failure soon"

How does "soon" follow from that the caps have not been flat for years?

"but please do not post in this forum at a later date asking for help recoving data from your drives when something else happens"

(I appreciate all the great help that I assume you've provided to many, but...)  That's impolite, DGroves.

And don't worry, I've got my data backups handled.

Edit:  Thank you very much for the interesting link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague (which I had not heard of); I will not be surrprised when the end comes for this PC.