Refurbed Precision 5810 won't boot

Question

I have a refurbed Precision 5810 and cannot now get it to boot.

I get the Dell logo with "Analysing your PC"; then "Repairing" and landing me at "Automatic repair couldn't repair your PC". There is reference to J:\recovery\WindowsRE\Winre.wim\System32\logfiles\Srt\SrtTrail.txt

No matter what repair options or troubleshooting I try, no luck. I've been to Microsoft and created a bootable USB drive, formatted to exFAT, to re-install Windows 10, but this doesn't work either as during the Windows install I have to choose the Custom option but can't select a drive to install window on to.

Can anyone help?

Thanks.

Tay01 · Answer

It may have been something another user (son) did when he hit F11 on boot up!  To disable the drives I presume I uncheck then (HDD-1, 2 and 3) from the 3rd screenshot above?

Tay01 · Answer

No luck there. Only Drive 0 and Drive 1 showing. 0 has 6 partitions. 1, 4 & 6 "GPT style partition", 2 & 5 "GPT style partition, Windows must be installed on a drive formatted to NFTS. This is an EFI system partition (ESP)" and 3 is a "Microsoft Reserved (MSR) partition".

As this was a refurbished PC it may have been configured for business use. I only need it for my son to run SolidWorks CAD for school projects. Everything else he does is on school Google Drive so no docs stored on PC.

I feel I just was to format the whole lot to give 1 2Tb HDD.

mazzinia_ · Answer

Just , with the windows installer,  delete the partitions in that hdd0 and recreate a partition

Andy812 · Answer

1 - exFAT is not bootable. There is simply no windows boot loader exists for the proprietary exFAT.

2 - internal drives converted to external, or migrated between motherboards, may not boot because windows installs basic controller driver for the boot-environment. changing the controller will lead to boot failure.

There are tricks to replace/add the boot-time driver, but it is a long story with some shamanism. Simple users usually just reinstall the Windows.

Tay01 · Answer

Agree that all I want to do is reinstall Windows. I've used the Dell OS Recovery tool to create the correct OS image to reinstall windows so assume that the external drive is formatted correct. On the F12 boot up menu I see:

I select the USB drive and progress to install and get the following drive options:

None of which will accept the installation.

Grateful for any suggestions.

Tay01 · Answer

Having read a post on wikiHow I was thinking of:

1. Formatting Drive 0 Partition 4

2 Deleting Drive 0 Partitions 1, 3, 5 and 6

3. Selecting Drive 0 Partition 4 for Windows installation and see what happens

Does that sound reasonable to anyone?

Tay01 · Answer

Unfortunately the installation failed and has brought me back to the screen below:

And I can't install Windows on any the Drives. I have even clicked 'Format' on Drive 0 Partition 2. The error says "Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk has an MBR partition table. On EFI systems, Windows can only be installed to GPT disks". Yet earlier errors said I couldn't install to a GPT disk - argh!!

Tay01 · Answer

Deep breath.  Have deleted and reassigned. We're now at the Installing Windows screen and things look to be progressing.  I'll let you know how it goes, but thanks for all your help so far.

mazzinia_ · Answer

I would simply delete all partitions on drive 0Then make a new ( using the new button ) partition on it, assigning all the space, select it to install and let windows do the rest

Tay01 · Answer

Thanks for all your help.  I now have Windows back on the PC and running through all the updates etc, but at least it seems to be working.

mazzinia_ · Answer

yw. on the long term there would be merit doing some small changes (assuming adding some extra money to the whole thing) , aka swapping hdd0 with a ssd (could be nvme, but a normal ssd would be simpler for you) and substituting the other 3 500gb hdds with a single 2 or 4tb hdd.

It's just an idea, nothing more

bradthetechnut · Answer

Glad you got it working. Always best to unplug all drives not being loaded with OS, something mazzinia mentioned.

I've ran into the same problem - can't load on selected drive. I think I highlighted the drive and chose "format," and away it went.

Recently, because of a few Win10 problems, I was going to have Win7 on a separate HDD. But when I saw all the possible drives to load on, I couldn't tell what drive was which. So I defaulted to unplugging all other drives. By the way, what I did end up doing is use previous HDD with Win 10 build 1903, and it works great.

bradthetechnut · Answer

I might be missing something, but the linked article above seems to contradict itself. It lists the feature of converting MBR to GPT partition scheme. Then mentions GPT error. And as far as I know, Win10 & 11 can't be installed on MBR partition scheme. Screengrabs from the article below.

Capture+_2022-01-25-12-39-26.png

Capture+_2022-01-25-12-39-49.png

As I think we know, not only can drives be formatted in Windows, but loading Win10 automatically formats the drive. The catch unlike with the software mentioned, files and data get lost with formatting.

Tay01 · Answer

Thanks for the suggestions.  We'll see how we go.  I only bought the PC so my son could run Solid Works CAD for his GCSEs.  It the PC proves more useful long term we may upgrade.  I confess to only getting the PC as SolidWorks won't run on macOS!

mazzinia_ · Answer

Ah, doesn't work with parallels ?

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Refurbed Precision 5810 won't boot

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