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My "C" Drive and "D" Drive switched places. How can I switch back?
I have an Alienware M18x R2 with windows 7 Ultimate 64bit.(SEE IMAGES) My drive setup is as follows:
Raid Volumes
ID Name Level Strip Size Status Bootable
0 My Raid Safe RAID1(Mirror) NA 465.8GB Normal Yes
1 SSD Cache Plus RAID0(Stripe) 128kb 41.0GB Normal Yes
2 SSD Accelerated RAID0(Cache) 128kb 18.6GB Available No
Physical Devices
ID Device Model Size Type/Status (Vol ID)
0 HGST**** 465.7GB Member Disk (0)
1 HGST**** 465.7GB Non-RAID Disk
3 HGST**** 465.7GB Member Disk (0)
5 Liteonit LMT-64M 59.6GB Cache Disk (1,2)
My "C" drive was my system disk. I reformatted the "D" drive and made a RAID disk out of it and drive ID 3. Everything was working fine. Then I rebooted my computer and it wouldnt boot.
Received "Check cable connection! PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel PXE ROM - No bootable device - Insert boot disk and press any key"
I created a system repair disk from another win 7 computer I have and was able to get it to boot to recovery. However it won't recover. Through the recovery options I was able to get to "my computer" and saw that all of my files etc that were on the "C" drive were now on the "D" drive and what was previously the "D" drive had become the "C" drive.
How can I fix this? I tried changing the boot order to boot from the other hard drive and that doesn't work. The only way I can boot up is using the win repair disk. I think that the problem is that all the boot info is on what is now the "D" drive (previously the "C" drive). So if I can switch them back I should be ok. Using the windows repair disk I can get to command prompt.
So either tell me how to switch them or please provide another solution. This is so frustrating!
alienwarem18xr2
3 Posts
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September 28th, 2013 14:00
Anybody? There has to be some Microsoft windows 7 expert out there or Alienware or Dell tech that can answer this?
Philip_Yip
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September 29th, 2013 07:00
I would suggest securely wiping the system and manually installing Windows.
See Unofficial Windows Reinstallation Guide/A Clean Install of Windows 7: http://philipyip.wordpress.com/dell-community-forums/
Cary out Step 1 to download a Windows 7 .iso from Digital River and create a bootable USB.
Carry out Step 2 on your system to backup the Alienware-OEM system locked preinstallation key and activation (I don't have these just the Dell ones).
Backup your data (Step 3) and download the OS updates, drivers and prepeare the SATA drivers if necessary (Step 4, 5 and 6).
Securely wipe your system with DBAN (the optional Step 7a). Change the SATA operation of the HDD to AHCI before using DBAN after using DBAN return the SATA operation to Intel Smart Response Technology.
Step 7b doesn't apply to your system.
During the Windows install (Step 8) skip entry of the product key. Activate instead using Step 11b.
Step 9, 10 and 12 install the Windows Standalone Updates and then the system drivers.
Step 13 and 14 install Microsoft software and Dell/Alienware preinstalled software.
Step 15 ignore since you have used DBAN.
Step 16 update Windows fully.
Step 17 update the BIOS (optional if available).
Step 18, 19 and 20 (optional)
Step 21 setup the Intel Rapid Response Technology to cache the mSATA SSD.
alienwarem18xr2
3 Posts
1
September 30th, 2013 17:00
Thank you for that info.
Would this work?
Since I have multiple hard drives could I take the RAID drive and reset to non-raid and then install windows onto one of the two disks that were RAID? Then if successful I should be able to copy over the data from my Disk that won't boot but still has my data on it to the new install?
Philip_Yip
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16K Posts
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October 2nd, 2013 03:00
If you can already access your data on the D: drive I would suggest copying it to an external hard drive before installing the operating system. Use of DBAN will wipe all drives.
yankeez
1 Message
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December 9th, 2013 00:00
REFORMATTING is not a solution. I've seen a LOT of Dell computers with this issues and now some other brands. Some sort of programming flaw made this happen, someone just needs to figure out how to switch them back.