Alienware Legacy m17x-R1

Morning guys,

I am at my wits end and after working in IT for a good 15 years now I have actually come across a system that has defeated me and I need some much needed help.

Right, here's the situation, looking at a Alienware m17x-R1 that's a pre Dell system for a friend of mine who is currently away doing his Royal Marine Commandos training.

Basically one of the two hdd's was broken as was the dvd drive, swapped the dvd drive no problem and pulled both hdd's (which were 120GB) and figured might as well do him a upgrade while I'm at it so have dropped in a pair of 500GB drives instead.

Now I can create the RAID Array at the BIOS stage as normal, install windows and everything is fine, however the second I install the Intel RST package to install the correct drivers and software to talk to the RAID Array I get into problems, it installs fine, reboots fine the first time and then as it boots up windows obviously picks up a hardware change and asks to restart, when I do this I find it will no longer boot and the RAID screen at the BIOS Level now no longer lists the array and lists both disk's statuses as INCOMPATIBLE

This is where I am stuck, I know the drives are not faulty, I have tried a number of 500gb disks I have in stock at the moment and get this same issue, tried low level reformats and whatnot and get stuck at the same point.

Did wonder if a BIOS Update might help, the laptop has 305 installed, but can't find any download anywhere of a BIOS that works with this model, I believe the latest version is 306.

So, any ideas anyone, I honestly am loosing the will to live here

 

In the bios the disks are set to RAID and you make the array after correct?

What versions of windows are you using and does the Intel driver say it is compatible?

Have you tried searching the net for newer (or if you are using the latest, then older) drivers for the Raid?

Have you tied using Windows Update to see if it had a driver suggested for the raid?

What RAID settings are you using? Mirror? Stripe? If stripe what is the stripe size set to?

Lastly, do you really even need the Intel Storage Matrix software? From my many times of installing windows usually there is a default driver that works fine, device manager shows no missing drivers, and the software is really only used to monitor your raid array while in windows. I have never actually NEEDED to install it.

 

Yes

Windows 7 and Yes

Yes, using the latest and have tried older ones

Yeah, did think of that one, wanted to try all other avenues first that's all.


Now, the update, after trying it for like the 30th time or something, this time it has NOT done it, things are working fine at the moment and the RAID Software is installed and everything is OK.

I don't suppose while I have your attention though that you would have the latest bios download stashed anywhere so I can get it off you?

 

Not for this unit bud but someone asked here recently and I think a link was provided. Just make sure you get the correct BIOS because there was an M17 and a M17x.

Also what solved the issue?

 

Yeah, looked for one, the only link for the m17x-R1 is the one that leads to the support.dell.com site which is long gone.

That's just it, nothing, did the same thing in the same order and this time for some bizarre issue it's not happened, at least not yet anyway. One thing that has just occurred to me having been studying the labels on the HDD's while I was bored is that it just so happens that all these drives I have tried are all 2012 manufactured and have the Advanced Format Logo in the corner. So I do wonder if maybe this laptop's RAID firmware is being a bit flaky because it is getting confused by these new 4K Sector HDD's.

 

Very odd. P.S. is your username a bloody roar reference?

Cronos the Phoenix

 

nope, just the same name I've used across games, forums and even my small business for the last 15 years or so lol

 

Well now you have an avatar pic haha

 

<------ No need

Thanks for trying to help anyway.