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Cannot boot to Windows Vista
I can no longer boot to Vista. When I start my computer it goes through the BIOS POST screen, then to the RAID screen that says RAID is healthy, then reboots again and again. This problem started after I ran bootrec.exe /FixMbr in Vista repair. I've tried Startup Repair, bootrec.exe /fixboot, bootrec.exe /RebuildBDC with no luck. Vista repair says I have no restore point. Also, I cannot boot into safe mode using F8. When I hit F8, nothing happens. I am able to hit Ctrl-N and access RAID, which shows my two drives in a healty RAID array.
I have a XPS 720, 2.93 Ghz (overclocked to 3.2) Quad Core X6800, 32-bit Vista Premium, 3 GB RAM, two 320 GB hard drives in RAID 1 array, BIOS A06.
The RAID 1 array broke when I was working in the BIOS and reset it to factory settings. I was still able to boot to my C: drive, but when I set the drives back to RAID configuration, I would get an error code during the boot process. Dell suggested reseating my hard drives, but nothing changed. After reading solutions to similar problems online, I tried to use Vista Repair to fix the problem, but after running bootrec.exe /FixMbr I ran into the continuous reboot cycle. I tried turning off RAID and simply booting to the C: drive, but this isn't working either.
One problem I encountered using Vista Repair was that no OS would show up on the System Recovery Options screen. The pop up window asked to install drivers, but I have no idea which drivers to install. I'm not sure where there drivers are on the Dell drivers disk and I can't access the C: drive from that window to install drivers. I am able to access the X: boot drive which appears to contain drivers, but again, I have no idea which drivers to install. Do I need to install the SATA and Nvidia RAID drivers? I see drivers for ulsata and several Nvidia RAID drivers. I have been skipping this step and going to the next screen without selecting an OS or installing drivers. Is this causing my problems with boot repair?
Also, when I do the command prompt and run diskpart, I only see one hard drive. I assume this is due to RAID?
When I run Startup Repair (without selecting an OS), everything checks out as OK except it says the "system volume is corrupt"
I suppose I could reformat and reinstall Vista, but I want to avoid that. If I do have to reinstall, do I reinstall to the C: drive and not the D: recovery partition? How do I get RAID working again after this? Dell says RAID should be detected automatically but I don't know if I've messed things up so much that I need to take additional steps to restore the RAID function.
I have run diagnostics from boot menu, so I know my hard drives are in good shape.