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Jim_Hill

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7 years ago

J

Jim_Hill

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March 7th, 2020 19:00

MBR Problem with Precision T3500

I have an old Dell Precision using MBR/BIOS (not UEFI).  I have a number of old hard drives used with this computer earlier that no longer work. None boot, but some, look ok in disk management.  All were stored in a drawer with anti-static film separating them.  I finally decided to try reformatting and attempted to use EraseUs Partition Manager to reformat.  I could not find reformat, but did see a link for "fixing" the bios.  Bad choice, now the computer will not boot!  The hard drive works fine in another T3500.  Is it possible to resolve this issue?.

Jim

 

  • DELL-Cares

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    Posted March 8th, 2020 14:00

    We tried reaching you on a private message but did not receive a response. Please feel free to reply to the private message whenever you are available.


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  • jim8080b

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    Posted March 8th, 2020 22:00

    Sorry, but I have never used the private mail feature, and don't see anything that covers it.  How do I proceed?

    I hope I have not sent this message a few minutes ago, but didn't check notify me if anyone replies

  • snail720

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    Posted March 30th, 2020 00:00

    Have you ever tried to reformat the old hard drive via DiskPart.exe tool? Press Win+R and input diskpart and hit on enter. In the elevated window, type list disk>select disk >clean> create partition primary. If it still cannot work, you can try AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard (the free version) to force format the hard drive or wipe the hard drive from BIOS. Hope you can solve it as expected.

  • jfmy787

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    Posted March 30th, 2020 02:00

    I use in the bios settings raid autodetect / ata

    You do not state what size hard drives you have.

    bigger than 2 tb you have to use GUID partition table (GPT) when formatting.

    I always use gparted live cd , you boot into a cd operating system and format what need, just make sure if over 2 tb and you want to see the whole disk look for the switch to switch to gpt fromating it is normally in mbr formating. There are youtube videos on how to use gparted live and what it looks like. You may or may not be able to check ntfs partitions with this.

    Hope this helps a little.  I would check your bios settings if the machine booted before and now does not.  Try restore defaults and go from there.