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59746
March 19th, 2015 15:00
clean reinstall with intel rapid storage ROM
After a series of hickups, I have recently ended up with a need to reinstall Win 7 on a Dell Inpiron 7250 that came with an SSD and a 1Tb hdd. Hardware diagnostics show no error. The problem is that when i attempt to reinstall the OS from OEM DVD the Bios menu is set to Intel Rapid Storage, but the install is not possible. There appears to be no drives to install to. With the BIOS set to AHC setup does run , but I end up losing the SSD and Intel RST funcionality. Having quickly skimmed Intel's manual it appears that what I am missing is: Rapid Storage Technology option ROM. How do I reinstall that?
I would need a step-by-step foolproof set of instructions that starts from a totally clean system. One cannot help but wonder why the OEM setup DVD is not able to set the system up from scratch.
Philip_Yip
9 Legend
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16.1K Posts
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March 28th, 2015 16:00
1. Windows Installation Media and UEFI BIOS Settings?
Have you made a Reinstallation USB set to install in UEFI with the GPT partition scheme formatted as FAT32? Do you have UEFI enabled, SecureBoot disabled and USB Debug Enables (USB 3.0 off):
http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/converting-your-dell-windows-reinstallation-dvd-into-a-reinstallation-usb/
http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/ensure-you-have-the-correct-sata-configuration-in-the-bios-setup-for-your-configuration/
2. SSD Windows Boot/HDD Data - Recommended Configuration
There are some issues with SSD cache drives and as the price of SSDs has fallen its better in most cases simply to replace the mSATA SSD with a larger capacity (>256 GB).
This will perform much better overall and be far more reliable than a SSD cache drive.
Ensure the SATA operation is AHCI and use DiskPart to wipe the HDD and SSD:
http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/a-clean-install-of-windows/a-clean-install-of-windows-8-1/useofdiskpart/
Clean install Windows on the SSD then reallocate libraries:
http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/a-clean-install-of-windows/a-clean-install-of-windows-8-1/solid-state-drive-and-hard-drive-configuration/
3. SSD Cache/HDD Windows - Unrecommended Configuration
You mentioned the model number as an Inspiron 7250, there is no Inspiron 7250, there is a Latitude E7250 and PowerEdge E7250.
Please confirm the model and what SATA driver you attempted to load.
Ensure that the SATA operation is Intel RS.
Philip_Yip
9 Legend
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16.1K Posts
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March 28th, 2015 17:00
Preparing SATA Drivers
Are you using this driver?
http://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER01861904M/1/Serial-ATA_Driver_V0GNH_WN_12.8.2.1000_A05.EXE
Do not use a zip folder, you want just a standard folder for the SATA drivers.
Clean the Drives
In one forum thread in the past, the user had issues similar to you even after loading the correct SATA drivers and it still wouldn't show. This was because the SSD had been initialised and had partitions on it.
Change the SATA operation to AHCI and then use DISKPART:
http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/a-clean-install-of-windows/a-clean-install-of-windows-8-1/useofdiskpart/
"Clean" the SSD and "Clean All" the HDD. After this revert the SATA operation to Intel RS and try again.
osprey4
4 Operator
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34.2K Posts
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March 21st, 2015 05:00
Hi BJanos,
Please refer to the link below for a good reinstallation guide.
Good luck!
BJanos
11 Posts
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March 25th, 2015 10:00
Is there any way i could reinstall dell factory image?
osprey4
4 Operator
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34.2K Posts
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March 25th, 2015 16:00
If you have the original hard drive that came installed on your desktop, you should be able to restore the factory image following these instructions.
BJanos
11 Posts
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March 25th, 2015 17:00
I do have the original hard drive with no data on it whatsoever. The same goes for the ssd the problem is that the RST config menu (ctrl + F10 dring POST), where i could set up the RAID configuration of the two drives, does not exist. I seem to have deleted everything from both drives, partitions including recovery data. All I have at this ponit is the OEM Windows 7 installer, and the OEM drivers dvds. When I set the BIOS to Intel RST the installer sees no disks. Setting it to AHCI allows me to install Windows to the HDD only.
I do have 2 NAS storage drives holding at least 2 copies of every photo and documents. That is not the issue. My heart aches for my I7 8gb RAM sytem, that is now only able to run at half steam.
osprey4
4 Operator
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34.2K Posts
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March 26th, 2015 17:00
Ok, so a factory restore is not an option. You have no choice but to do a clean installation of the OS.
The Intel RAID configuration menu is Ctrl-i, but you are not setting up a RAID. The controller mode must be set to RAID.
Please refer to the OS installation guide I have linked to below for help.
BJanos
11 Posts
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March 27th, 2015 04:00
I followed this http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/a-clean-install-of-windows/downloading-preparing-and-loading-sata-drivers/ with BIOS set to Intel RS, when win 7 install starts pre loaded all drivers as suggested, and still no drives are available.
Ctlr+I does not activate anything during POST.
I am really sorry to be this much trouble.
BJanos
11 Posts
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March 27th, 2015 05:00
I'm begining to think that I keep runng into the same dead end street, because i do something utterly wrong at the very begining. Just sum it up and avoid using the wrong expression.
In BIOS when i set AHCI - the drives are there, but after installing Intel Rapid Storage i get BLOD, and the system goes back to a previous restore point.
When BIOS is set to Intel Smart response- no drives are present regardless of the fact that I perform the driver install for IRST at the begining of the setup.
Neither BIOS setting alows me to access intel boot menu with ctrl +I
Am I missing an important detail?
osprey4
4 Operator
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34.2K Posts
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March 28th, 2015 05:00
Ok, I realize I'm making a assumption. Is your SSD an mSATA or regular SATA SSD? I was thinking mSATA, which is the cache drive used for Intel Rapid Start Technology. But if you have a regular SATA SSD, then you should follow the normal installation procedure.
BJanos
11 Posts
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March 28th, 2015 08:00
It's a Samsung SSD PM830 mSata 32 Gb ATA device according to the device manager.
BJanos
11 Posts
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March 28th, 2015 16:00
SSD Cache/HDD Windows was the original factory configuration. This is what I would like to return to.
BJanos
11 Posts
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March 28th, 2015 16:00
My bad. It's an Inspiron 7520-7531 AKA 15R SE. I have attempted to load the .inf from the most recent Intel RST driver contained in a zip file named f6flpy-x64.
BJanos
11 Posts
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March 29th, 2015 04:00
One last question before I proceed. The Ctrl+I menu does not fuction. Isn't this going to be a problem?
osprey4
4 Operator
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34.2K Posts
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March 30th, 2015 17:00
You only need the Ctrl-i function if you're setting up an actual disk array, which you are not.