BIOS problems on Inspiron 1564, how to get Dell to listen?

Hi all, it's me again

I ran into another problem this time which I already documented a bit on this forum. Whenever a HDD >120GB is inserted into the ODD Bay the BIOS has a ~75% chance of freezing on BIOS, if it boots past the BIOS (takes >1minute) then the HDD can not be found by Windows.
I've discussed this problem with the BIOS modding people over at MDL (and several other places) and they're fairly sure the space that should to go to the HDD if it's bigger than 120GB is being eaten up by the HD5450GPU. (Intel IGP 1564's don't have this problem).

Sadly my laptop is out of warranty and it is an older model but since this seems to affect all DGPU 1564's out there I thought I might try waking up Dell through their community forums...They don't exactly listen.
Does anyone has any ideas how I can atleast get somewhat of an answer out of Dell? Even a "No we won't fix this." is better than nothing at all. Then atleast I know they don't want my business anymore and I can go hunting for a new laptop. I'll dump some links here where either I or other people discussed the problem already.

Dell Community forum - 2nd HDD in inspiron 1564
Dell Community forum - Bios boot very slow on Inspiron 1564
Bios-mods.com - Dell Inspiron 1564 unlocked A10 bios + Request for A13
Notebookreview.com - DIY: Adding SSD or HDD storage using an optical bay caddy
Mydigitallife - Integrate PCI Option Rom (specifically newer raid option rom) into a Dell Laptop Bios

Fixes or how to contact Dell when the warranty is expired are welcome.
~Aeny

 

I'll be pretty honest here, since this model has long since been retired from production, there isn't a snowball's chance in hell you can convince dell of trying to fix such an obscure issue which only power users are affected by.
My personal opinion.
But if you want to try, my suggestion would be to get really friendly with one of their marketing higher-ups
Ideally, this issue should be presented as part of a bigger issue that needs fixing.

 

Yeah well, this bug should have never existed in the first place.. I've seen some people from Dell on here so maybe one of them sees this. But they don't seem to be very active on here lately (or i just don't see their posts).
I guess I'm going to create myself a fresh thread on the Dell community forums instead of posting in existing ones, and send something to @DellCares on twitter I guess.

Real bummer, I was planning to keep this laptop for another ~2years. Seems I'll have to buy new and NOT from Dell. I can't afford to run into bugs like these that will probably never get fixed.

More or better ideas?
~Aeny

EDIT:
Installed GRUB2 Bootloader and guess what? It cannot see the disk either. Tested with about 5 disks which are confirmed running with the caddy in 2 other laptops and a desktop PC's. hdd's and caddies are not at fault.

 

BUMP!
To make this thing a tiny bit bigger: It's not the 1564 alone but the 1464 & 1764 as well.
Also, since Linux seems to be able to work around it and detect the drives after boot is there any way to see what kind of trickery is used to achieve this? There must be some sort of patch used somewhere I imagine, perhaps it's better if I ask this in the linux portion of NBR..

~Aeny

 

Hey,

I'm pretty narked off about this - I ordered an SSD, some more RAM, a caddy and everything in prep to install into my DELL 1764 laptop - thought I'd move my 500GB HDD to the caddy and SSD in the primary slot. The SSD hasn't arrived yet, but I've got the caddy so installed a couple of spare HDD's into the caddy only to find NONE of them are detected by the BIOS.

I've tried a 40GB, 320gb, and the 500gb that came in the laptop originally. None work.
I have tried removing primary drive and just using a disk in the caddy - no joy.
I have tried installing caddy when windows is running - nothing detected.

I am on the latest BIOS A13 - thought about trying the 1564 BIOS as they are interchangeable - but don't see the point as it appears those laptops also have the problem.

Now, the SSD that's turning up is the Samsung 840 (non-pro) 120gb. This alone is not enough capacity for me. I dont want to have to use an external drive caddy, as USB speeds will be a lot slower.

So I'm in a quandry - don't know what to do. Either send the SSD back and give up on the whole idea, or somehow try to work around it.

There are reports on the internet of some users being able to use some disks but not others - so far I've not been able to get any to work. I can only assume it's a chipset issue?
My DVD-RW drive still functions fine.....

Is there anyone who can suggest a fix? Any other BIOS I could use?
Miffed

 

There is no fix yet, if you're still in warranty then give Dell hell, spam them. What you could do is run Linux and then run Windows on top of that using XEN with vga passthrough but that's a very ugly workaround for a bug that shouldn't exist.

Only the Dell's with the HD5450 dGPU's are affected, I have a 1564 with a Intel IGP which can run 2x1TB disks just fine. I don't know about the Dell 1564 with the HD4330 GPU but I assume they are NOT affected. As I posted earlier the 1464,1564, 1764 are all affected, I already tried 'crossflashing' but the issue stayed.

Sadly I'm out of warranty so Dell ignores me. Could you link me to the reports you found by the way?
~Aeny

EDIT: You can see what disk setups I got to work in the OP, the mydigitallife link.

 

Just going to *bump* this post to let others tracking this issue know that Dell is looking into it. I tweeted @DellCares and they forwarded it to the product engineering group on the 7th of February. I just messaged them now and they're saying they're still looking into the issue so hopefully this will get resolved soon! Atleast they just didn't tell me they won't fix it because of the age of the laptop.. kind of surprising.. I still got some hope

~Aeny

 

hey!

I just stumbled upon this when trying to figure out what the fudge was up with my HDD or caddy. Do you happen to know if anything improved in the past 2 years what would the solution be?

I am not sure I have the same problem as my BIOS does see the HDD, but windows can't access it (through the ODD caddy.. .USB caddy works well and I formatted)

 

Nothing changed. Dell basically told me to go f- myself. I even asked them if they'd do anything if I renewed the warranty and they flat out said they'd keep sending me replacement motherboards until I'd get bored and leave them alone.

I do remember having some issue with disks not being seen at all too. As I recall it had something to do with the Intel RST driver. Once I went back to stock MS drivers it just started working. You could also try the following things: try it under Linux, try the caddy in a different laptop to see if the caddy is working, try hotplugging the caddy.

~Aeny

 

Ok, Since there is no hope of using the HDD caddy in my 1564, and l've already bought a new fast 120GB SSD, l thought of buying a SATA-to-USB connection and use it with a custom-made or a modified caddy to connect the 2nd 750GB HDD into one of the USB ports. Not sure exactly how l'm going to make it yet.
What do you guys think?