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Studio XPS 435MT won't boot from cd rom drive
Just purchased an outlet 435MT and am in the process of trying to upgrade the hard drive to a Raid 1 with two 1 TB Western Digital Black hard drives. However, when I try to boot from cd I keep getting a message about No Diagnostic Utility Partition Identified; press any key to reboot. I have changed the order of the boot drives to have the cd 1st. I have the latest bios and Intel drivers for the Raid. If I disconnect the Western Digital drives it will boot from the cd rom drive. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
jurek13
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March 25th, 2009 16:00
I've got the same problem, but I found the solution.
I bought DELL Studio XPS 435MT with one WD Caviar Blue 640GB hard drive. I got second WD hard drive (exactly the same) and built RAID-0 array. After that I couldn't boot system neither from DVD-ROM drive nor USB device. The BIOS was stucked on "No Diagnostic Utility Partition Identified; press any key to reboot" message.
This error occures only if the system is running on the newest BIOS 1.0.12 (newest on 25 March 2009).
The solution isn't simple if you already deleted all preinstalled partitions.
1. Download and burn Hiren's BootCD (9.8 or newer).
2. Delete RAID array on DELL Studio XPS.
3. Connect main (factory preinstalled) hard disk to different computer and use MBRWork to restore previos MBR configuration.
4. Prepare disk image on external HDD using i.e. Ghost.
5. Connect drive again to DELL Studio XPS.
6. Start Mini Windows XP from Hiren's CD.
7. Downgrade XPS 435MT BIOS to at least 1.0.8 (in command line cd to directory with S435-108.exe and run S435-108.exe /forceit).
8. Build RAID array (level 0 or 1).
9. Start Mini Windows XP from Hiren's CD.
10. Restore HDD image from step 4 on new array.
11. Upgrade BIOS to the newest version.
12. Install operating system and have a lot of fun on your new DELL Studio XPS :)
REMEMBER! You use all tools mentioned above at your own risk!
Roadrunner.1
1 Message
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April 3rd, 2009 00:00
Hi, I had the same problem, and found another solution.
The problem is, that on the harddrive is a partition that starts in cylinder 0 and not in 1. I think that In cylinder 0 is a 'link' to the Diagnostic Utility Partion. When the Computer starts, it will read the 'Partion Table' found the Link, but don't found the Partion. So it hangs before it try to boot from CD/DVD.
The solution, if you don't won't to rescue any data on the Disks (IT WILL BE ALL DELETED):
- Get the Drives (BOTH) out of the Computer.
- Find another Computer where you can install the drives (or one after the other), and install it there.
- Boot an OS on the other Computer (I use Open Suse which start directly from a DVD)
- Write on both Drives a new partiontable (MSDOS). And create on each Drive a single partition which use the whole drive (formatet with EXE3, but any has to do it). And be sure the partition starts at cylinder 1, which is the normal!
- Reinstall both Drives back in the Dell computer.
Now you can start from CD/DVD on the Dell computer.
When you have done this, you have 2 virgen Drives, without the problem, but also without the Rescue Partition from Dell and without other things that Dell has installed.
btw. Sorry for my english, I'm German. ;-)
tsai
1 Message
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May 1st, 2009 15:00
Just disconnect all your hard drivers, boot from any cd or usb driver, downgrade the bios to 1.0.8. You are done. Simply disable the hard drivers from the boot menu of BIOS does not work, you have to disconnect all drivers.
pgluck
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June 9th, 2009 01:00
Here's another way that doesn't involve opening the case and disconnecting anything...
Use another computer to create a bootable USB flash drive copy of the Dell reinstallation DVD. I used the procedure here:
http://kmwoley.com/blog/?p=345
to make a bootable reinstallation drive on an 8 GB Verbatim flash drive on my laptop. Then select F12 during the boot process and boot from the flash drive. You can then repair the installation so that you can download and install the downgraded (or upgraded) BIOS.
If you need to recover/repartition the RAID disk, you can use the 'diskpart' utility from the console on the reinstallation DVD.
Gutterhog
1 Message
1
August 15th, 2010 21:00
I just had this problem and found another souloution. Unplug Both hard drives and as soon as you get to the boot from CD page plug them in again. then go into the windows setup and delete the partion. Then reboot and it will be working fine.
Stuza
4 Posts
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November 2nd, 2010 07:00
Hi Gutterhog,
your solution sounds a bit too easy! lol
Would you know if this works with third party RAID cards such as the RocketRaid 620?
Thanks!
Antonio.Wayans
7 Posts
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November 23rd, 2010 15:00
Thanks for your effort! It's comprehensive, Now I got it.