BleepingComputer.com: Not Seeing System Drive

I RECENTLY WENT THROUGH A "THERMAL EVENT" WITH MY DELL 610 PRECISION WORKSTATION. IT SEEMS AS THOUGH THE INTEL PIII'S SUSTAINED DAMAGE AS A RESULT. IT TOOK SOME TIME TO COME ACROSS A CORRECT PAIR OF REPLACEMENT UNITS. NOW THE SYSTEM GOES THROUGH ALL THE PRELIMINARY BOOTING, THEN I GET A "NTLDR" MISSING MESSAGE. IT IS NOT SEEING THE BOOT SECTOR OF THE SYSTEM DRIVE. ALL HARD DRIVES APPEAR TO BE RUNNING (CAN FEEL THEM), ALL RIBBON CABLES CHECKED, SWAPPED BETWEEN THEMSELVES, THEN SWAPPED FOR NEW. IN ADDITION, THIS CASE SPORTS A 4 UNIT HARD DRIVE RACK RUN OFF A PCI CONTROLLER CARD. TWO OF THESE HARD DRIVES ARE NOT RECOGNISED. ALOT OF HEAD SCRATCHING. MAYBE IT JUST DOES NOT LIKE BEING OFF FOR SO LONG. I DID NOT SHUT IT DOWN, AS A RULE, UNTIL IT SHUT DOWN BY WAY OF THE AFFORE MENTIONED THERMAL EVENT. WHAT AM I MISSING HERE ? ANY, AND IN FACT, ALL HELP WILL BE GREATLY APPRECIATED.

By "replacement units" I assume you mean the processors...

If the hard drives were originally plugged in to the IDE ports on the motherboard and are now plugged into the ATA controller card, that could definitely cause that error, as Windows usually does not respond favorably to having it's boot storage controller changed. If that's the case, I would advise you to reconnect the hard drives back as they were installed originally.

What company made the PCI card and What is the model of the card?

Was this computer originally set up as a RAID?

arcman, on Aug 13 2007, 04:01 PM, said:

I'M SORRY I WAS NOT CLEAR. YES,THE REPLACEMENT "UNITS" I DESCRIBED REFERRED TO THE INTEL 550 XEON PIII'S. THERE IS ONE SYSTEM DRIVE AND ONE ADDITIONAL DRIVE, BOTH 20GBB, ON IDE CHANNEL "A". THE OTHER IDE CHANNEL SPORTS THE CD DRIVE. THE ADDITIONAL 4 DRIVES RUN OFF THE PCI CARD, A PROMISE ULTRA 100 TX2, WHICH IS NOT RAID. ALL THOSE DRIVES ARE 80GB. SINCE MY INITIAL POST, I HAVE SWITCHED PCI SLOTS FOR THIS CARD, AND NOW ALL THESE DRIVES ARE RECOGNISED. STILL NO LUCK WITH THE SYSTEM DRIVE OR THE SECOND DRIVE ON THIS CHANNEL. IN SETUP, HARD-DISK DRIVE SEQUENCE #1 LISTED IS SYSTEM BIOS BOOT DEVICE. THE OTHER FOUR DRIVES LISTED ARE THE PCI CARD UNITS. BOOT SEQUENCE LISTS #! CD-ROM DEVICE, #2 HARD-DISK DRIVE C, #3 DISKETTE DRIVE A. THIS IS A NEW FEATURE. BEFORE IT ONLY SHOWED DRIVE "A" AS A BOOT DEVICE. IT SEES DRIVE C - OR DOES IT ?

oldf@rt, on Aug 13 2007, 04:07 PM, said:

THE PCI CONTROLLER CARD IS A PROMISE ULTRA 100 TX2, NO IT IS NOT RAID. I SWITCHED THE PCI SLOTS FOR THIS CARD AND NOW THESE DRIVES ARE RECOGNISED.

arcman, on Aug 13 2007, 04:01 PM, said:

I'M SORRY I WAS NOT CLEAR. YES,THE REPLACEMENT "UNITS" I DESCRIBED REFERRED TO THE INTEL 550 XEON PIII'S. THERE IS ONE SYSTEM DRIVE AND ONE ADDITIONAL DRIVE, BOTH 20GBB, ON IDE CHANNEL "A". THE OTHER IDE CHANNEL SPORTS THE CD DRIVE. THE ADDITIONAL 4 DRIVES RUN OFF THE PCI CARD, A PROMISE ULTRA 100 TX2, WHICH IS NOT RAID. ALL THOSE DRIVES ARE 80GB. SINCE MY INITIAL POST, I HAVE SWITCHED PCI SLOTS FOR THIS CARD, AND NOW ALL THESE DRIVES ARE RECOGNISED. STILL NO LUCK WITH THE SYSTEM DRIVE OR THE SECOND DRIVE ON THIS CHANNEL. IN SETUP, HARD-DISK DRIVE SEQUENCE #1 LISTED IS SYSTEM BIOS BOOT DEVICE. THE OTHER FOUR DRIVES LISTED ARE THE PCI CARD UNITS. BOOT SEQUENCE LISTS #! CD-ROM DEVICE, #2 HARD-DISK DRIVE C, #3 DISKETTE DRIVE A. THIS IS A NEW FEATURE. BEFORE IT ONLY SHOWED DRIVE "A" AS A BOOT DEVICE. IT SEES DRIVE C - OR DOES IT ?

Here is a suggested fix: enter the bios, go to the advanced settings and make sure the onboard controller, (not the add in card) is set to be primary boot. Got to the advanced boot area, and make sure that SCSI boot is turned off. This card has a bootable bios on board, and it sounds to me that the computer is looking for the boot block from one of the drives attached to the card, not your primary ide drive.

oldf@rt, on Aug 13 2007, 05:51 PM, said:

GOOD AFTERNOON,
GOT INTO BIOS - SHOWN AS SETUP - F2. PRIMARY DRIVE SHOWS AS CD-ROM READER. PRIMARY DRIVE 0, SECONDARY DRIVES 0 & 1 SHOW AS UNKNOWN. PRIMARY 1 IS NOT ATTATCHED TO A DEVICE. THE TWO SECONDARY DRIVES ARE. BOTH 20GB, ONE IS THE SYSTEM DRIVE. I HOOKED ANOTHER SYSTEM DRIVE TO THE PLUG NOW OCCUPIED NY THE CD-ROM. DID THIS BECAUSE AT LEAST IT WAS A RECOGNISED CONNECTION. NO LUCK - ADD ONE MORE "UNKNOWN DEVICE" TO THE LIST. DID AS YOU SUGGESTED - TURNED OFF THE SCSI DRIVE SO AS TO ISOLATE TO PRIMARY DRIVES, AND PULLED THE CARD, THIS TOOK AWAY THE DRIVE "C" FROM THE BOOT OPTIONS. DRIVES A, C, D, & E ARE FLOPPY, SYSTEM (IDE CHANNEL 2, DRIVE 0), CD-ROM (PRIMARY DRIVE 0) & SECOND 20GB DRIVE (SECONDARY IDE CHANNEL DRIVE 1). THE IDE CONTROLLER CARD DRIVES ARE G, H, I, J & K. THERE ARE ALSO PARTITIONS, SO E BECOMES E & F AND G BECOMES G & H. ANOTHER BUG IN THE OINTMENT. I HAVE 750MB OF ECC SDRAM CARDS PLUGGED IN. SYSTEM BIOS SHOWS ONLY 15MB. I AM BEGAINNING TO THINK THERMAL DAMAGE WENT BEYOND THE PROCESSORS. THOUGHTS ON THIS ?? AGAIN, THANKS FOR YOURASSISTANCE.

I am beginning to think the same thing. But try this, go into the bios, use the F9 key to setup defaults with just the regular drives plugged in, not the additional card. That is, if that is the key that your model uses. Sometimes resetting defaults or pulling the clock battery for a little while will solve the inability to detect drives.

oldf@rt, on Aug 14 2007, 10:53 PM, said:

THANKS, BUT NO LUCK THERE. BIOS HAS NO OPPTIONAL KEYS, OTHER THAN THE SCROLLED SELECTION. MAYBE DELL MIGHT OFFER HELP, ALONG THE LINES OF RESTORING DEFAULTS. CORRECT ME IF I'M WRONG, THIS IS A DESIREABLE ATTRIBUTE IN TERMS OF MAINTAINING A BASELINE OF OPERATIONAL FORMAT. DON'T GET ME WRONG, THANKS FOR ASSISTANCE. BUT NOW MY RIG WANTS TO RUN HOME TO "MAMA". IT'S 10 YEARS OLD, THEY MAY BE THE ONLY ONES. AGAIN - THANKS MUCH !!

You are welcome!!

This post has been edited by oldf@rt: 15 August 2007 - 12:28 AM