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15 R3, Bios not detecting third HDD, Boot Device Not Found
Dear all, good day. Any expert can help ?
My laptop is Alienware 15 R3, it showed "Boot Device Not Found". I checked Bios and found Third HDD is missing in Bios (only Forth HDD is there) , please see below screen:
I used Diagnostic function after pressing F12 and found the third HDD can be found together with forth HDD using Diagnostic , but current Thermals of third HDD is "n/a", please see scree below (BTW, all components including third HDD show "ok" after Diagnostic):
Is there anyone who could help me to make my laptop back to operation, thank you so much in advance.
Best Regards,
truedavid
crimsom
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July 4th, 2021 13:00
mattyb3
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July 4th, 2021 22:00
It's very possible that your SSD is failing or that you have a Windows corruption. Usually if you attempt to restart 3-4 times in a row the system will attempt to do a system recovery but since it does not detect a drive at all then this may not be possible. Did the ePSA diagnostic pick up any hardware errors?
I find it strange that it shows the bootpath as MBR. The MBR partition type is an older type for Legacy BIOS boot while newer laptops tend to use UEFI which has the GPT partition type. If your system is set to UEFI but the drive partition is MBR then you will get the No Boot Device error. Have you made any changes to the Boot settings in the BIOS before the error started? I would have thought that the 15 R3 was set to UEFI by default.
LSUFAN51
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July 5th, 2021 07:00
The drive saying n/a in Dell diagnostic usually means failed drive therefore, I suspect the hard drive has failed as well. Surprisingly, there wasn't a error code reported on the drive in Dell diagnostic.
Just to be sure, I would suggest reseating the drive. Keep in mind, cables or a drive could become loose over time, sometimes just reseating the hard drive and re-plugging the drive cables can often resolve this no boot device problem.
You could also consider Resetting BIOS to Defaults to see if it will make any difference. Please view steps to reset BIOS to default in crimsom video above. Take notes of the BIOS setting before doing steps.
Lastly, check out the information in link below, hopefully it will be a help to you as well. Good Luck.
Solved: No bootable devices found - Dell Community
truedavid
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July 5th, 2021 23:00
@mattyb3 @crimsom @LSUFAN51 Really thank you for your guidance, this is my first time to use community to solve my problems, now all issues have been solved, thank you very much, here I summarized my progress :
(1) Issue: BIOS can not detect one HDD while ePSA Diagnostic can detect it but with "n/a" thermals
Solution: Based on @mattyb3 @LSUFAN51 's suggestion, I reseated the HDD and restarted the laptop, then all HDD can be detected by BIOS, and ePSA Diagnostic can also detect all HDD with thermals.
(2) Issue: After (1) is solved and restored BIOS to default, the laptop still shows "Boot device Failed". Tried to adjust BIOS settings in any way, still can not solve the problem.
Solution:
Thank you all again. Have a good day.
crimsom
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July 5th, 2021 09:00
Hi @truedavid the easy option is to swap-in a new M.2 NVMe OS(C:) boot drive to get the 15 R3 working again. Then the 15 R3 can be used to diagnose why your hidden drives are not being recognised.
The Crucial System Advisor Tool says Alienware-15-R3 will accept an ultrafast read/write 1TB or 2TB M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3 x4 NVMe card. Your existing OS(C:) boot drive cannot be cloned because it is damaged. Ask a colleague if you can clone their OS(C:) boot drive using Macrium Reflect Free, or get a M.2 NVMe card with the Windows 10 x64 operating system preinstalled (eBay, Amazon, etc.).
Please click on Kudos to say thank you for response from user that is not employed by Dell. Please share an update on progress, so that other users derive benefit from your experience. Thank you.
truedavid
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July 5th, 2021 09:00
Thank you very much for the guidance. I followed your instruction to reseat the HDD, and then BIOS can detect all HDD now. I also run ePSA Diagnostic and everything is perfect, all HDD are detected with thermals as well. But the drive partition is still showing MBR while the system is set to UEFI , I also restore the BIOS to default (UEFI / Secure Boot on / Legacy Option ROMs off), but still "Boot failure on device".
I also press F12 to boot the system with "Windows Boot Manager" option, but the screen shows "Selected boot device failed". I guess the only option I didn't try is to use " USB drive with recovery media".
truedavid
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July 5th, 2021 10:00
Thank you @mattyb3 @crimsom @LSUFAN51 for your advise and guidance.
I followed your instruction to reseat the HDD, and then BIOS can detect all HDD now. I also run ePSA Diagnostic and everything is perfect, all HDD are detected with thermals as well. But the drive partition is still showing MBR while the system is set to UEFI , I also restore the BIOS to default (UEFI / Secure Boot on / Legacy Option ROMs off), but still "Boot failure on device".
I also press F12 to boot the system with "Windows Boot Manager" option, but the screen shows "Selected boot device failed". I guess the only option I didn't try is to use " USB drive with recovery media".
crimsom
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July 5th, 2021 11:00
Hi @truedavid the best option is to stop using SATA boot drive, and swap-in a new M.2 NVMe OS(C:) boot drive. This is the modern BIOS/UEFI with GPT partition format, enhanced security, reliability, read/write performance upgrade for your 15 R3.
mattyb3
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July 5th, 2021 14:00
You could try setting the BIOS to Legacy and see what happens. You can always switch back to UEFI. I don't see why your drives say MBR though. Maybe it's just how they are because they are older style drives.
LSUFAN51
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July 6th, 2021 06:00
Glad to know the computer is up and running again Thanks for sharing the information for others to see and be a help to them.
crimsom
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July 6th, 2021 07:00
Hi @truedavid thank you for providing detailed information about how solution was obtained.
Alienware 15 R3 Storage. Based on your recent experience, still do not understand reluctance to keep using the up to 6 Gbps, very slow read/write SATA HDD with MBR partition format as the OS(C:) boot drive.
Why not upgrade to the up to 32 Gbps read/write, fast M.2 PCIe NVMe with GPT partition OS(C:) boot drive and use BIOS/UEFI. This will supercharge your system performance with increased file security, and allow more than 2TB M.2 storage cards to be used.
truedavid
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July 7th, 2021 05:00
Thank you for your suggestion, I will ask my company if they have budget for it. ^_^