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I've made my Inspiron 530 Unbootable! Think I am missing a driver
The punchline: I can no longer boot my Inspiron 530 into either Windows Vista or Windows 7 since I made a switch in the BIOS to allow for Spinrite software to run.
The details:
Since the day I got my Inspiron 530, it had run Windows Vista. In the last couple of weeks, I installed an SSD and put Windows 7 on it with a dual boot configuration, leaving Vista on the existing hard drive. I needed to install an add on card to get more SATA ports as the 4 that were on the motherboard were already filled with two DVD drives and two SATA hard drives. All was running smoothly with both OSes bootable.
My problems started when I decided to try running Spinrite on my system to check how my drives were doing. I found that I couldn't get Spinrite to work unless I changed the BIOS SATA mode from "IDE" to "RAID". This got Spinrite working and it found no problems with my disks. I tried re-booting the system without switching the BIOS back to "IDE" and found that neither Windows would boot. I get a Windows Boot Manager prompt to select which Windows I want to boot and then it looks like Windows is starting followed by a quick error message saying that windows can't boot probably due to a recent hardware change and then it tries to boot again. Basically the same effect whether trying Vista or 7.
I thought setting the BIOS back to "IDE" would take care of the problem, but when I do that, I get a flashing cursor on the screen and then nothing, no prompt to select between Vista/7, nothing. At least with SATA mode I can get the Vista System Recovery Options, start a command prompt, run a chkdsk and all seems fine. I can check the C: drive and there are no errors. From here I tried to install the Intel Matrix Storage Manager, hoping it would pickup the necessary driver, allowing me to boot. But no luck. So the drives are there and accessible from the recovery manager, but not bootable.
Let me add that I have two non-RAID disk attached to the SATA ports on the motherboard. I am running the latest BIOS 1018.
Other things I am thinking of trying is to pull the new SATA board I installed to see if it is causing any conflicts. As I said, it was running perfectly before I changed the BIOS settings. Maybe I should move all the drives over to the SATA add on board (it has 4 ports), but I am worried about messing up drive letters and making things worse.
Any suggestions from the Guru's that follow these boards? I can usually figure these things out, but I am really at a loss now.
Thanks,
Julian
JW3533
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December 9th, 2013 01:00
OK, I think I got it figured out without having to restore my BIOS to default settings (although I think that would have fixed it as well).
In the BIOS settings, the setting for First Boot Device had gotten set to "Disabled" and that is why I was getting the blinking cursor when trying to boot under the IDE mode. Once I set it to "Hard Drive," the system would boot normally again.
Maybe the setting had gotten altered when I went back and forth between RAID and IDE modes because I don't remember changing it to "Disabled."
Thanks for the suggestions and maybe my experience will help others with the same problem.
rdunnill
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December 7th, 2013 13:00
Can you boot directly from the SSD with the BIOS set to IDE?
If you had the SATA card installed before the Spinrite episode, you should be able to boot from it. However, if Spinrite has changed up your Windows boot files, that may not happen.
I'd try booting from the SATA card first. Let us know what happens either way.
JW3533
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December 8th, 2013 00:00
Ok, I set the setting back to IDE and started trying the different boot devices by pressing F12 when starting up. I tried seeing if I could boot up the Windows 7 Installation DVD when in IDE mode and I got the prompt to press a key to boot from CD/DVD, so I did, then I got the Windows Boot Manager asking if I wanted Vista or 7, so I chose Vista and got the machine to boot from the Vista Hard Drive Partition! I'm going to experiment with a couple of other options since I am not really sure why the Windows Install DVD didn't boot. I am thinking that to solve the problem I may have to reset the BIOS to default setting as something may have gotten scrambled. I first have some work to do on the computer now that it has booted, so this may wait a day or two.
Thanks for giving me more suggestions and I'll report back what it takes to get operations back to normal. I'm just happy I was able to boot into either Windows for now! I hope to have the same success with the installation for 7 as well. I spent a lot of hours getting software installed and would hate to lose it. Might have to backup the partition image before I get to much further along.
Julian