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Inspiron 3847 BIOS settings ?? Added SATA RAID card and would like to get past the boot up error for or
Folks I know with the Dell inspiron 3847 to be able to configure the sata drives as RAID1 or any RAID configuration won't work. So I bought and installed a Vantec 4+1 SATA II w/RAID.
I have the OS reinstalled on the RAID configured drives for the Vantec controller. Since I have no sata drives attached to the onboard sata ports, I get the error message stating (paraphrasing here) similar to going into setup or press F2 (we will say to continue).
So pressing F2 to continue reads the Vantec RAID controller and boots into Win 7 64 bit, no issues, runs great.
I set the BIOS to no stop on the error messages however it still errors so I have to press a key to continue. I've even set the Bootup devices to if I recall correctly to boot to RAID, which the setting is listed I think since I have the Vantec raid controller configured for Raid 1..
So how do I enable in the BIOS to just simply boot up and move to the RAID controller without an error message and go from there???? Its been a few days since I booted up, so I am going off of memory on the message, however it is very close to what the message states.
I think if I disable any boot up devices, then naturally nothing boots and the computer sits at the Dell boot up logo. I can't find any BIOS settings for the configurations online in Dells manuals. Not sure if there is any way to get the BIOS configuration documentation somewhere?
the motherboard installed is a Great Bear motherboard MIH81R / 13040-1M is what I see stamped on the MB... thanks if anyone has any ideas.. appreciate your time.
dromesburg
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January 23rd, 2015 15:00
Folks, I found a solution, a work around if you will.. After spending time with Vantec support and a ton of time with Dell 2nd level support; seems like unless there is a sata drive attached to the 1st port, this error message will continue, there is no way to turn off the error message.
The BIOS does not have any setting to suppress or disable boot up messages. I have to give credit to dell support, the lvl 2 person I spoke with ended with this workaround and it worked...
Attached 1 sata drive to the 1st port, see if this solves the hard drive failure error message. So here is what you have to do to get it to work correctly.... If you don't reformat the SATA port 0 drive, then the OS will try to boot on that drive or perhaps for drive format may not be correct.
motherboard Sata port - old laptop sata hard drive, I reformatted to NTFS. Added the 2 drives back to the Vantec UGT-IS100R controller that is already installed and configured as RAID 1, mirror set.
So what happens now is I think the BIOS as least recognizes the sata laptop empty, yet reformatted drive, then moves to the RAID drives on the Vantec UGT-IS100R controller and boots nicely into WIndows 7.
Once in Windows 7, do into disk management and remove any drive letter from the laptop drive. You do this so Windows doesn't show the drive under My Computer and no one writes data out to that drive.
Works beautifully, though having a BIOS entry would have been so much easier. This works, no error boot up message, great to go!!!
RoHe
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January 15th, 2015 14:00
Is the RAID card really necessary? Can't you just connect both HDDs directly to the motherboard and set SATA Operation (SATA Mode?) to RAID in BIOS and do a RAID install of Windows 7 and use the Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver?
Unfortunately, Dell doesn't include BIOS screens in manuals for newer systems like the 3847, but we keep asking for them....
speedstep
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January 16th, 2015 09:00
CN 088DT1 is the part number for the 3847 motherboard.
You have to enable Legacy Boot and Go into Bios under Maintenance and TURN OFF the PCI-E SERR MSG.
dromesburg
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January 21st, 2015 13:00
Hi Speedstep thank you for the reply.. I didn't realize notifications were turned off, so I just logged in and saw your response as well. I turned notifications on now..
Boot mode is set to Legacy, the only Errors you can set to disable or report is the Keyboard errors, that is all I can find going through every screen...
Under "Main" Sata 0 & 1 list as empty, because there is no Sata hard drive attached to either port. The hard drives are attached to the Vantec SATA II UGT-IS100R.
One thing to note is the MB must recognize this controller as a RAID controller, because prior to installing this card, there was never a Boot Device listed with RAID, I could select the SATA drive, or DVD or USB, etc, however no RAID would show up in the list..
Set the 1st Boot Device to Internal HDD Devices:RAID, which I did select since it is available in the menu now. There is a section below that is Hard Disk Drivers: choices are RAID or Disabled so I set it to RAID...
so my dilemma... I hate the fact Dell doesn't like BIOS configurations or settings. I was almost thinking perhaps I need to install one disk to the internal MB connection, and one to the 1st RAID port on the controller, however I don't even think that makes sense. That is about the only option I can think of since I've tried everything else. I've set up literally thousands of computer, including servers (which I know are not the same) and have never seen anything like this... thanks
dromesburg
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January 21st, 2015 13:00
Thanks Ron, sorry for the delay, the response notification was turned off... From what I recall there is no RAID controller on this MB, so there is no setting for this. On other Dells I could configure the RAID because that mb included a RAID controller, this one does not.. thanks
RoHe
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January 23rd, 2015 16:00
It seems part of this thread has disappeared...?? :emotion-7:
Saw your last comments in the email alert, but they're not here on the forum.
Anyway, that's an interesting fix somebody came up with. I wonder what would happen if you connected the SATA optical drive to SATA0 instead of that formatted / empty laptop HDD?
If the optical drive does the same thing as the lappy HDD, you might be able to simplify things and still have use of the optical drive. That said, I don't know if SATA0 will support an optical drive...