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What's the RAID controller in an XPS 710?
I've been asked to help recover some data from an XPS 710's striped drives. The last time I tried this was with an XPS700 which died and gave me just max fan and an amber power light (shocking, I know) and I was able to move those drives into this 710, which mounted the RAID0 array and allowed me to image them to a network drive. Now this machine's showing with the Amber Light of Dell Death and I don't have another XPS 7xx to throw its RAID0 pair into.
What kind of raid controller is in there? Something from Nvidia, IIRC? (I know it's not the same Intel RAID controller that's in all the OptiPlexes I maintain, because those can't mount this drive pair...) Is there anything else that uses that chipset that might be easier to find than another XPS?
duncan77
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January 28th, 2012 18:00
Turns out an Ubuntu livecd was able to mount the raid pair (software raid on SATA 1 and 2 in an optiplex), with no configuration help from me, so I was able to transfer the data to a network share.
When powered on there are no diagnostic lights lit, and Googling on "Dell XPS 710 solid amber light" gives me enough evidence that this motherboard is shot. Now I have two of these in my lab, which will be handy in case I ever need to sink a body in the bay.
osprey4
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January 27th, 2012 15:00
Hi Duncan77,
The chipset is an NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI MCP. All Optiplexes have Intel chipsets.
For the amber light diagnosis, see this. Depends on whether it's blinking or not. Blinking is usually the power supply.
theflash1932
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January 27th, 2012 18:00
Except for the 580 ;)
osprey4
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January 28th, 2012 14:00
Guess I didn't get that memo. :emotion-6: