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D900t - Missing RAID BIOS, bad motherboard, bad settings, or something else???

post #1 of 2
7/13/08 at 3:03am
Thread Starter 
Greetings;

I recently acquired an Alienware (D900T) that can not detect hard drives (single or dual, known good hard drives). However, unlike most posts I have found on that subject, this unit does not seem to have any way to get into the RAID controller. It does not matter if I have the BIOS set to “Disabled”, “ATA” or “RAID”.

How do I determine if this is the infamous motherboard problem, a BIOS problem, or something else? It just seems strange that I don’t get any reading or error at all and no options to enter into the RAID controller as other posts mention.

The unit has the Version 5.3 motherboard and currently at BIOS 1.04. When it arrived it had a newer BIOS that I read was not compatible with that motherboard, so after being unable to get it to work, I flashed an to an older version, but I still don't get anything but the 2 optical drives.

Please let me know if any additional information might be helpful.

Thank you.
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post #2 of 2
7/13/08 at 4:56pm
Thread Starter 
Since everything except the hard drives seemed to be working, I booted the system up and ran CPU and memory tests, which it passed without problem. Even ran it on an Ubuntu live CD for a bit.

Since it did all of that, I went ahead and dismantled the system to check for obvious physical damage. With the exception of one damaged cable (which I caused) the system looks fine. There is no sign of heat damage or obviously blown components. The cable I damaged is for the Firewire ports by the audio ports and should be easy enough to replace if I can't fix it.


So... it would seem to me that either there is something wrong in the firmware, the drive cable is bad, or there is a problem that can't be easily seen with the naked eye.

Other than part this out on eBay or buy a new motherboard, does anyone have any suggestions of things I should try? While I wait, I will probably put it back together and attempt to flash it back to version 1 of the D900T BIOS (the AJP version is the only one I have that goes back to version 1) just to see if that helps.

By the by, is there a preferred BIOS version for the V5.3 motherboard?
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