Hard drive not reading, Windows won't boot.

[Thezman727]

While exploring my new workstation, a Dell Precision 7910, I had pulled out a drive tray, thinking it was empty. It was not empty, it housed the SSD that the OS runs on. The computer was on when it was pulled. I plugged the drive back in and the screen went black. Restarting the computer gives me a "no boot device found" error. The BIOS also does not see any of the disks, SSD or the three other drives (set as a RAID).

OS is Windows 8

I took out the SSD again to check it through an external enclosure on a separate computer. The drive is readable and all the files seem to be on there.

Any suggestions, comments or other?

 

[scout_03]

those 3 other hdd have the os as raid on them if not try to boot only with the ssd .

 

[Thezman727]

The SSD has the OS on it and that is the drive that I pulled by accident. Are you saying I should take out the other three drives and just try to boot from the SSD? Even though the BIOS is not recognizing any of the drives besides the DVD drive?

 

[scout_03]

try the test the raid settings could have fail and when you see the bios boot screen enter it to see if it detect the ssd as it should or set it the other thing you could try is to move the ssd cable to the upper slot on the motherboard without the hdd tha lest one would be to do a cmos .

 

[Thezman727]

Ok and by "do a cmos" do you mean removing the battery which will reset the BIOS?

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there Thezman727,

Yeah, I thing that he meant resetting the BIOS through removing the battery.
As the drive is working fine on another computer, I would advise you to check the connections out. You can just swap the cables and try the drive on a different SATA port.

Here's a guide on how to restart your BIOS: http://www.wikihow.com/Reset-Your-BIOS

Hope this will help,
D_Know_WD

 

[Thezman727]

Thank you both! Problem was resolved, when SSD was pulled out, the RAID config went crazy. Even though the SSD is not part of the RAID, it is running through the RAID controller. My coworker/resident computer tech was able get the machine back up and running, no damage (phew!).

 

[D_Know_WD]

I'm glad that you sorted this issue out.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD

 

[arunkt78]

Hello Thezman727,

I ran into a similar issue but I can see the RAID drives (4-1TB HDD) in the BIOS and the main OS SSD is not detected though. Any help from your experience?

Thanks.