Pc stuck, new install, not possible, bios, not possible

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gillesvandenbruel

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Feb 6, 2022
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hiii,

Soo i think i’ve tried pretty much everything & i’m starting to loose my mind. x

At first my pc would go beyond the screen in the attachment and i was also able to start repair with a usb but it failed & now it’s stuck on that screen. If i restart i can’t enter bios with my f-key’s.

So what options do i have here?
Please help a guy out x
 
This screen :(
 

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looks like you have 4 Seagate 1TB hard drives in an array, and one has died, or the array has failed and needs rebuilding.

and that is NEVER good news.

in my experience of RAID arrays, when the array fails, all your data is gone - yep - gone.
maybe it's me, and the way they have failed, but trying to get data off a drive that was part of an array is impossible because of the missing parity bit data, or the striped array or whatever.

since you were using RAID10, that should allow you to simply replace the dead drive, in your case Disk 3. but it needs to be the same drive, not only capacity, but also geometry (heads, sector etc) because of how RAID10 mirrors and stripes.

people often forget (or don't know) - RAID is not a backup!

as for accessing BIOS - as soon as the PC starts, repeatedly hitting F2 like a crazy person should get you into BIOS.

personally, I'd be accepting all your data has gone to ***.
remove all drives and reformat one of them in another system.
then using that drive back in the Alienware, reinstall Windows.
you would first need to go into BIOS and turn off the RAID feature.

and this would be a great opportunity to upgrade to a solid state drive.
 
Hi
Bruce said:
looks like you have 4 Seagate 1TB hard drives in an array, and one has died, or the array has failed and needs rebuilding.

and that is NEVER good news.

in my experience of RAID arrays, when the array fails, all your data is gone - yep - gone.
maybe it's me, and the way they have failed, but trying to get data off a drive that was part of an array is impossible because of the missing parity bit data, or the striped array or whatever.

since you were using RAID10, that should allow you to simply replace the dead drive, in your case Disk 3. but it needs to be the same drive, not only capacity, but also geometry (heads, sector etc) because of how RAID10 mirrors and stripes.

people often forget (or don't know) - RAID is not a backup!

as for accessing BIOS - as soon as the PC starts, repeatedly hitting F2 like a crazy person should get you into BIOS.

personally, I'd be accepting all your data has gone to ***.
remove all drives and reformat one of them in another system.
then using that drive back in the Alienware, reinstall Windows.
you would first need to go into BIOS and turn off the RAID feature.

and this would be a great opportunity to upgrade to a solid state drive.
Click to expand...
,

Thank you soo much! This is very helpful! I’ve tried like a 100 times & i really can not get into bios, i think my f12 is about to give up! 😆 i’m using a corsair 2 usb keyboard, could this be the problem?
 
While Bruce is offline;

gillesvandenbruel said:
Also it’s an Alienware(really old one) so i don’t really know what the specifications are :/
Click to expand...

Post which model it is for us.

gillesvandenbruel said:
i’m using a corsair 2 usb keyboard, could this be the problem?
Click to expand...

Would never be without a PS/2 type keyboard in the toolkit, should the USB ports get disabled somehow you are up the creek without a paddle.

If your PC has PS/2 type ports, get yourself a PS/2 type keyboard for testing purposes.

In addition to the above;

Have any batteries that the KB may use been changed.

If the PC has both USB 2.0 and 3.0, make sure that the KB is connected to the black USB 2.0 type.
 
phillpower2 said:
While Bruce is offline;



Post which model it is for us.



Would never be without a PS/2 type keyboard in the toolkit, should the USB ports get disabled somehow you are up the creek without a paddle.

If your PC has PS/2 type ports, get yourself a PS/2 type keyboard for testing purposes.

In addition to the above;

Have any batteries that the KB may use been changed.

If the PC has both USB 2.0 and 3.0, make sure that the KB is connected to the black USB 2.0 type.
Click to expand...
I just checked and the model is: Alienware Aurora R4! This model does not have the PS/2 type ports, but i will check the usb’s!
 
What about any batteries in the KB, there does not appear to be any such a KB made by Corsair so we can`t check any specs, corsair 2 usb keyboard

That model of PC does have both USB 2,0 and 3.0 ports, the one that you should use first is the one optical and coaxial spdif or alternatively the one next to the LAN port.

Can I ask that you do not quote every reply as we have to read the full post to make sure nothing gets missed,, thanks.
 
yes, getting a USB keyboard will be a good start.

and you say you are hitting F12, are you sure that is correct for BIOS?
don't get me wrong, it could be, but I thought Alienware usually have F2 as the BIOS entry key.

you may also get lucky by pressing Ctrl+i to enter the RAID config utility, you may be able to reformat the dead drive, all drives or rebuild the array - but I'm pretty sure any one of those process will also destroy your data - but I'm also (sadly) confident that your data is already gone!
 
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