XPS One 2720, RAID boot config issue

Question

SO here the story ....

We own a telecom/data company so we know PCs and servers well and have our own lab techs.

We own (5) XPS2720 AIOs and had (#1) with a power supply issue this morning. We had a spare (#2) XPS2720 so we pulled the PS out of it and swapped it and the (#1) unit powered up fine to a WIN 10 login screen. We rebooted 3X and each time it was successful w/o issues.

Then the problems occurred ... (#2) XPS2720 had a faster CPU I-7 so I decided to pull the 2TB drive out of the repaired (#1) unit along with (#2s) power supply and swap them into (#2) unit. I attempted to power up (#2) unit with (#1s) hard drive - and it just sat there at the Dell logo with the circling dots - trying to startup .... it wouldn't after 5 min so I powered it off.

I remembered that (#1) also had a 32GB SSD and (#2) unit didn't - so I pulled the SSD card from (#1) unit into (#2) unit. It did the same thing ... wouldn't boot and sat thinking. It was then I remembered a tech article that Dell had setup the XPS 2720s w/ (2) drives (SSD & 2TB SATA) in a "RAID" config.

So to keep it simple - right - I went back to my original (#1) unit - returned the 2TB drive and 32GB SSD card and the PS from (#2) unit. I powered up but gave me a config windows error - BSOD ... showing "BAD SYSTEM CONFIG INFO". I allowed it to run thru it diags and then rebooted it. Came up with a new error - that it needed to check the hard drive. It came back after 30 min and showed the drive was fine and to reboot.

I can't get it to boot to WIN 10!! Tried all the obvious steps via restore points and other troubleshooting steps.

Check the DELL BIOS settings and it was still set as it was when I lost the PS earlier in the morning. It is RAID and I know I haven't "wiped" any data off the drives ... and really need to be able to get this booted back to where it was this AM as there is important data on the system.

Any ideas??

Thanks Andy - Drew Telecom/Data Group

drewmich · Answer

The hard drive was removed while the power was off and the SSD card was removed a hour later with the power off?? Any more ideas is awesome.

Vic384 · Answer

The 32GB SSD is used to cache the 2TB HDD. You should have disabled the cache before pulling and swapping the HDD on both computers. I am not sure but I think it is possible that when the HDD was swapped what was in the cache may have been written to the HDD and corrupted it. You may be able to recover your user data but the OS may be corrupted.

Vic384 · Answer

One possibility is that while your XPS-2720's are identical, they are not identical to the Windows operating system. Normally you cannot move the boot drive from one computer to another without re-installing the operating system. At least this is the case as far as Windows activation is concerned.

Another possibility is that there is a problem with Fast Startup. Windows 10 Fast Startup is enabled by default. In Fast Startup, the current system state is saved to the hibernation file and the hibernation file is read during boot-up. Usually, when you get the circling dots and the system does not boot to Windows, a force shutdown will clear the problem. You indicated you powered off the system after 5 minutes, but did you try powering the system on again? Here is an article about Fast Startup: https://www.howtogeek.com/243901/the-pros-and-cons-of-windows-10s-fast-startup-mode/

Since the hibernation file is stored on the HDD moving the HDD moved the hibernation from one computer to another.

RoHe · Answer

Lets hope it's a Fast Startup issue and a full power off and reboot solves the problem as @Vic384 suggested.

But, you moved the HDD from #1 into #2 without moving the cache SSD too. So when you tried to boot #2 from that drive, it might have written something to the HDD. Without the cache SSD being there, that would have corrupted the OS installation. So now the HDD isn't bootable when it's back in #1, even with the cache SSD installed...

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XPS One 2720, RAID boot config issue

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