Since you mentioned the setting keeps reverting to ATA after setting it to RAID, do you think that perhaps it is either not detecting both drives, or one of them is faulty? That would also explain why it doesn't see a partition and won't boot. Another possibility might be that the order of the drives has been swapped.
Jeff On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 11:50 AM, Sean Martin <[email protected]>wrote: > Dell Studio 540 - Windows Vista Ultimate x64 > > I recently experienced a hardware issue with my desktop. Dell dispatched a > technician who was able to resolve the hardware issue by replacing the > motherboard, cpu and power supply. It appears the CPU was the culprit behind > the original hardware issue. However, now my desktop won't boot. It's as if > the hard drives are unrecognized. I see the all too familiar message > "Missing Operating System". I loaded the original OS disk that came with the > desktop. It sees the C: partition as unformatted. > > Desktop is configured with two 640GB Samsung SATA drives in a RAID 0 > config. From what I can tell, the drives are plugged in correctly. The only > configuration options in the BIOS are "ATA" or "RAID" for the onboard > peripheral devices. I can choose RAID, save changes and exit, yet it still > won't boot. Going back into the BIOS, the same option is set back to > ATA. This is an integrated RAID controller, and I see the same symptoms > using the original motherboard and the replacement motherboard. The PC does > initiate one beep, followed by 3 quick beeps during post, but later research > seems to indicate the beeps are related to the USB devices I have plugged > in. > > I can't help but think there should be additional RAID configuration > options, but none are to be found. Are there any tips and/or tricks I'm > missing, or is it likely the original CPU problem has somehow caused this > additional issue? Shouldn't the RAID configuration be accessible from the > drives themselves? > > If there doesn't appear to be any solutions, is anyone familiar with an > external SATA drive bay I can plug these drives into and then possibly > access from another PC via USB? > > > > > > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
