XPS 410 - error starting up

Here are a few questions for you;

You have 2 HDD's installed. Are they setup as a Raid? If so is it Raid 0 or Raid 1?

Is there a CD/DVD in the drive?

Do you have a floppy drive? Is there a disk in it?

Do you have any USB devices plugged in other than your keyboard and mouse? If so what are they.

 

The computer may be trying to boot from one of these items. You should remove any disks that are in any drives and try again, Remove any USB devices other than your keyboard and mouse and try booting again.

 

Post back and let us know what the results are.

 

Dave

Yeah I have 2 HDDs installed. They are setup as Raid 0. DVD is installed but there is not cd or dvd in the dvd player while trying to boot the system. Floppy drive isn't installed. Only USB mouse and keyboard are hooked to the system. No other USB device is installed.

 

As soon as my system boots up, it halts on the screen. This is how that screen looks:

 

Serial ATA AHCI BIOS.

 

Controller Bus#00, Device#1F, Function#02: 03 Ports, 03 Devices

Port-00: Hard Disk, Samsung SP22304c (this device is controlled by the RAID BIOS)

Port-01: Hard Disk, Samsung SP22304c (this device is controlled by the RAID BIOS)

Port-03: CDROM, TSSTcorp DVD+/-RW TS-H653A

 

ACHI BIOS Installed

Intel (R) Matriz Storage Manager option ROM v6.0.0.1022 ICH8R

 

RAID Volumes:

ID = 0

Name = ARRAY

LEVEL = RAID0 (Stripe)

Strip = 128kb

Size = 465.7 GB

Status = Normal

Bootable = Yes

 

Physical Disks:

Port   Drive Model              Serial #                          Size           Type/Status (Vol ID)

0       Samsung SP2504C     S09QJ1SP*****             232.8GB      Error Occured (0)

1       Samsung SP2504C     S09QJ1SP*****             232.8GB      Error Occured (0)

Press CTRL-I to enter Configuration Utility

Missing Operating System

 

This is where the system stops and doesn't move any further.

 

Following is my system configuration:

 

XPS 410
Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E6400 (2MB L2 Cache,2.13GHz,1066 FSB), Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium

 

Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E6400 (2MB L2 Cache,2.13GHz,1066 FSB)

1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz - 2 DIMMs

256MB nVidia Geforce 7300LE TurboCache

500GB Performance RAID 0 (2 x 250GB SATA 3Gb/s 7200 RPM HDDs)

13 in 1 Media Card Reader

Single Drive: 16X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write capability

Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio

IEEE 1394 Adapter

Any clue why the system stopped responding all of sudden? How can I get the system to work as before? Your help would be really appreciated.

 

Thank You.

Adnan;

My first thought is that your Raid has failed, possibly one of the drives going bad. That is the big problem with Raid 0, if 1 drive fails you lose everything. I have not done much with Raid in the last few years myself and it was normaly Raid 1 or 5. I may not be alot of help to you on this.

The first thing I would recommend doing is to boot from the Dell Diags disk and run the full diagnostics to see if you get any errors and we can go from there.

I did not receive any of the Dell Diagnostic Disk at the time I purchased the desktop. I tried to run the diagnostic test by pressing F12 at the startup and system runs the test for some time and all of sudden the screen turns blank. I wonder if this is a normal procedure or not.

Do you still think that the Raid has failed even though it says Normal status under Raid Volume section? But it also says Error Occured(Vol0) under Type.

 

Im so lost :(

I think that the status of "Normal" is that the controller is good. You show errors on both drives though so that makes me think that 1 or both drives are either bad or that the MBR has been damaged. You could try to do a windows repair and see if that hets you back in. I believe that you press "F12" at bootup and select recovery or somthing like that and there should be an option to repair windows. It has been some time since I have looked at these options since I have wiped all of my computers and manualy installed the OS so I do not have the recovery option available any longer to take a look at.

Hopefully there will be someone else joining this thread with some advice.

 

You said that you did not get the 32 bit diag disk. Did you get the Windows reinstall disk? You can go to this LINK to order a replacement set of disks that will include the Windows, 32-bit diag and all drivers for your computer. They are pretty fast with getting these shipped out to you.

If MBR is damaged, then im hosed. I wonder how come such major disaster took place even though system was working fine earlier. Let me order the CDs from Dell and figure out the problem.

Thank you for the information. Really appreciate it.