Clean Install Windows 7 On Dell Inspiron 14z

Hi MSchoen1

My apologies for the delay.

I have received information about this issue from our engineering team.

1)     Change the SATA mode in Bios from IRST to AHCI

2)    Now reboot the system and check if you are able to reach RAID Bios by Pressing CTRL + I

3)    If Yes, please disable acceleration and change SATA mode in BIOS back to IRST and Initiate OSRI. The Hard drives should get detected now.

4)    After the reinstallation is complete, please follow the steps given in my previous post to install Intel Rapid Storage Software and enable acceleration.

 If you are not able to access RAID Bios

1)    Initiate Reinstallation of windows with SATA mode as AHCI

2)    Install the OS in the Normal HDD and not the mSATA drive.

3)    After reinstallation please contact me, I can take remote access and disable Acceleration, post which please follow step 4

4)    Change SATA mode to IRST and reboot. The system will boot normally.

5)    Install Intel Rapid Storage Software and enable acceleration as given in my previous post.

Please let me know in case you have any questions.

Thanks & Regards
Rakesh R
#iworkfordell

In my opinion (and I, unlike, I suppose,  Rakesh from Dell, have an Inspiron 14z in front of me) there is no CTRL+I option available on this laptop and you'll not be able to access raid bios this way.

But, that is not necessary, as the issue can be solved different way, by erasing raid metadata from disks (see my posts above)so the raid regarded them as new disks not being a part of logical container, and then re-deploying IRST driver, post Windows installation.

Apply my work-around and consider the problem solved:)

Marek 

Is there anyway to enter raid bios that ot Crlt+I cuz i can't enter it

Hello Marek,

First of all, thanks for the hints, I am trying to apply them now.

I read that Ubuntu forum topic and one of the post says:

"Darko's instructions are what this thread ended up doing as near as I can tell. You end up not having the Intel Smart Reponse but then have a SSD & hard drive without the RAID."

Applying that workaround were you able to get the caching working with Intel Rapid Storage Technology and Intel Rapid Start Technology, along with Intel Smart Response techbology enabled on BIOS?

Or did you just install the OS on the SSD driver?

I couldn't get Intel Rapid Start Technology to work with ISRT enable on BIOS though... I keep getting the following error message that its not enabled in my system (even though its enable in my BIOS).

However when I bounce bios back to AHCI it works fine. Did you get Rapid Start and Rapid Storage working together with ISRT set on BIOS?

Marek,

Your workaround worked like a charm. Thanks a lot. And congratulations for the effort you put on your research.

Kridtin,

You don't need to install Ubuntu - you just need to boot once from any Live Linux CD/USB with 'dmraid' utility (I have confirmed Ubuntu Desktop 12.04LTS liveCD is enough and working).

In background, you have / will have Windows installed on your non-SSD disk drive, and the whole reason of erasing disks metadata is to tell your Intel raid controller to start treating your disks as "brand new" ones, which don't belong to a raid container, and thus letting you set up ISRT/IRST acceleration under Windows.

So, should you find this forum thread I think you already managed to break apart your factory Windows 7 installation on Inspiron, as all of us above;),  and are having trouble putting it back there:)

So, step 1: you need to boot from Linux Live CD to erase metadata on your hard drives (for new or existing installation of Windows to see your drives at all) - see my posts above for exact commands.

Step2: turn on /make sure it is on the ISRT mode for harddrives in bios

Step 3: install Windows as usual or boot the Windows that you had previously running on your computer.

At last, just install IRST and then ISRT drivers and turn on Rapid Start sleep mode and Rapid Storage disk acceleration.

Marek

in ur step is it means that i have to install ubuntu to spit the drive do i have to install window first or what can u explain me more psf please provide me step by step cuz i'm not that good in computer thx a lot

>I couldn't get Intel Rapid Start Technology to work with ISRT enable on BIOS though... I keep getting the following error message that its not enabled in my >system (even though its enable in my BIOS).

>However when I bounce bios back to AHCI it works fine. Did you get Rapid Start and Rapid Storage working together with ISRT set on BIOS?

Carlos,

I had similar experience:)

I solved it by un-installing both ISRT and IRST dirvers/software, rebooting, and re-installing first IRST then ISRT drivers.

Marek

Carlos,

I endend up not havin' OS installed on SSD - I just launched Windows on 500G disk plus both IRST and ISRT technologies utilizing 32G SSD.

Only was able to fire up 18.6G for ISRT, as otherwise it used to overwrite my hibernation partition, so, I wasted around 5GB on SSD.

BEWARE: do not turn on "performace mode" of acceleration for ISRT. I had a bluescreen and the OS stopped booting after disk defragmentation in "performance mode". I decided to stay with "enhanced mode" after that incident.

I was successful in both, installing Windows in AHCI mode, then enabling ISRT in bios (having metadata cleared first) as well as installing Windows in bios/ISRT mode on (w/o metadata) and enabling ISRT acceleration mode in driver.

In both cases, I set up and turned IRST on first, then ISRT (after subsequent reboot).

Marek

Marek,

Now I understand why I wasnt able to get IRST and ISRT working together, I was having it RAID the full SSD and when this happens, it overrides the hibernation partition.

I don't know if wasting 5GBs of your SSD is worth it just to have Rapid Start working. I was having this debate with a Dell suport agent and he said its always better to have Rapid Response instead Rapid Start for hybrid hard drives like ours.

I personaly have the full SSD raided with my HDD, and I don't have Rapid Start.

I'd like to know your opinion on this.

Also, did you fragment your hard drive manually and then got BSOD with acelleration mode set to maximized performance?

Thanks!

Carlos,

I just like the feature of rapid start from sleep mode as I've had a taste of Macbook Air already:)

It actually saves you from wasting time for starting Windows whenever you frequently open/close your lid (like, want to quickly just check sth on the Internet).

As of the defrag - yes, I was trying to defragment drive manually (and I think the computer went to sleep in the meantime, causing the data not to be written back to HDD), but I anticipate a BSOD to come sometimes anyway with "performance mode" on, as in Win 7 the defrag is auto-scheduled for every week to perform:)

I also have this idea of setting up the leftover 5GB on SSD as a partition used for page file. I'm not to the end convenient that it would be an optimal use for that space though.

Marek

I see what are you saying.

I read somewhere (I don't remember where) that the SSD chip lifetime is limited by the number of times your write data on it. So defrag is not a goot option SSD because it will make numerous write operations on the chip, reducing its lifetime.

As for using the spare 5GBs what do you mean by page file?

I think I am better off with my full SSD raided with HDD, I don't have this need for a rapid start, maybe in the future, who knows.

Kridtin

The method above would work only in 2 cases:

- when you are installing Windows on a disk that was never used for RAID/ISRT before

- when you cleared RAID metadata from that disk (yes, the UBUNTU method I described above, for instance).

Otherwise, after loading the driver you will not be able to see the 500GB disk (or the bigger one, depending on your HW CFG) as a place to install OS to, what, I believe, was the whole reason to set up this forum thread.

Regards

Marek

have anybody try this method   www.mediafire.com ?? i receuve this method from dell