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"HDD replacement is not valid"
I have a SFF Optiplex 755 with A22 BIOS. I removed the 250 GB HD it came with, and installed a 120 GB SSD for boot, and a 2 TB WD Red for storage, then finally installed Win7 Pro from scratch.
Now, every time I boot I get the following message:
"HDD replacement is not valid, continued use may result in long term HDD reliability issues, please press F1 if you would like to continue, and/or call Dell for replacement HDD"
Any idea on what may be causing this, and how can I fix it while keeping both HDs in there? One theory is that none of the drives have any Dell specific diagnostic partition, though when I turn off the SATA port that has the 2TB WD Red, it boots fine without any warning, so seems to me it just doesn't like 2 HDs in there. :-(
TIA
szamosj
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January 18th, 2013 11:00
I'm fairly sure SATA1 can support a HDD, though I didn't tried it. BTW, the boot HD can be on SATA2 -- due to cabling I had to leave the HD on SATA0, even though it's not the boot device anymore.
In any case, since my first post someone pointed out this: http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/kcs/document?c=us&l=en&s=gen&docid=DSN_37EC4B1BCD6C9532E040A68F5B28094C&isLegacy=true
'HDD replacement is not valid' Message on Dell Optiplex Computer - KB Article - 329305
In essence, it's a "feature" (a hack, to be exact) put in because of thermal considerations. There are at least 2 workarounds: a) set keyboard errors not to be displayed -- the HD warning will be displayed, but the PC will continue to boot without requiring pressing F1 b) connect the 2nd HD to the eSATA connector -- no message at all, but then there's an extra 30 sec - 1 min delay during POST in that case .
The proper solution would've been to add add a separate entry to turn OFF HD warnings, and add HD temperature monitoring at the BIOS level.
RoHe
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January 17th, 2013 18:00
Do you just have a bum 2T WD HDD or maybe a bum SATA cable??
Can you test this HDD in another system or "borrow" a SATA cable from somewhere?
If you put the old 250 GB drive back in place of the 2T drive, does that work correctly when you boot from the SSD?
szamosj
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January 17th, 2013 19:00
The 2 TB drive is brand new and passed verification and full format last night. I was using the same cable the system came with (an 8" long left angle SATA cable) -- but I tried another one and it didn't make any difference. Lastly, I just replaced the the 2 TB WD with the 250 GB drive (also WD) it came with -- and that didn't make any difference either.
rdunnill
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January 17th, 2013 19:00
I had an SSD in an Optiplex 960 and no special partition was needed.
Can you boot from the 2tb?
RoHe
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January 18th, 2013 10:00
The manual says the small form version supports:
Do we know that SATA1 can support a HDD, instead of an optical drive? (Boot HDD should be on SATA0.)
Will you have to put the 12T HDD into an eSATA case?
CGC Luke
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July 16th, 2013 14:00
I had this same issue, and I found an answer here:
http://superuser.com/questions/146176/off-the-shelf-hdd-in-dell-optiplex-755-invalid-replacement-press-f1-when-reb
Basically, you need to connect the original HDD to the esata port. Or in your case I guess you would put the 2tb drive there.
EIther way, somehow using the esata by passes the error.
Hope this helps!
speedstep
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July 17th, 2013 13:00
Dell 755 Desktop is configured to reject anything but a Western Digital or Samsung hard drive, claiming it is due to "thermal considerations". This is for the Desktop and SFF and USFF models.
'HDD replacement is not valid' Message on Dell Optiplex Computer - KB Article - 329305 | Dell