If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#286
|
|||
|
|||
Win7 support:
Robert in CA wrote:
So I guess when I first pull up the Mrimg I should look for the AE70 or something similar? So when I start the process I look for that as the source. Is that correct? Robert The Macrium backup you made, if you start to restore it, the disk-to-disk screen will show the source identifier, and you can compare that to the destinations showing on the screen. It would make sense if they matched, as you assume the Windows 7 disk hasn't changed that much since when the backup was made. Since you use MBR disks as a rule, and not GPT, the number should have 8 hex digits. Paul |
Ads |
#287
|
|||
|
|||
Win7 support:
On Saturday, August 3, 2019 at 8:02:00 AM UTC-7, Paul wrote:
Robert in CA wrote: On Saturday, August 3, 2019 at 1:20:29 AM UTC-7, Paul wrote: Robert in CA wrote: So do I remove the F1 problem? Robert A "Press F1" error in this case is triggered by enabling a SATA port and not having a SATA drive present. That's probably a good thing when RAID disks are involved, and a dumb idea if RAID is disabled or not desired. You could disable SATA ports when you're not using them. That's perhaps one way to fix the "Press F1" error. My motherboards here, have a "Stop on" [No Error] == other values might be [All errors] [Floppy error] [Whatever error] option, that when an error occurs, the F1 prompt does *not* occur. But your Dell BIOS is pretty clever and will undoubtedly do these things a different way, right ? Paul This is why I removed the data cable and un-ticked the WIN10 HD but you advised not to do that. So should I put the bad Win7 and Win10 back and see if we can resolve the problems because I don't want to mess this HD up. How about this.. remove the present HD and replace with the Win 10 and see if I can get it to load in Safe Mode. Then try install the bad HD and see if I can do a restore but I have a question on that. I obviously needed a rescue disk to clone the 780 backup HD but I don't have a 780 rescue CD so my question is this. 1. can I use the same rescue CD on the 8500 and 780? 2. the 780 CD drive isn't responding so should I redo the boot order so all removable media is on top eg. USB Floppy drives card readers hard drive hard drive Then try and restore the bad drive? Robert Restoring CD/DVD drive operation is pretty important. I would make sure the enabled SATA cables include the CD optical drive port as well. There is one screen in your BIOS, which shows device identifications when the BIOS comes up. By checking that screen, you can tell whether the SATA port is enabled. If the SATA connectors on the motherboard had good silk screen labels on them, this would take the mystery out of figuring out which port is running the optical drive. And it doesn't matter if you hit an F1 during this "adjustment phase". In principle, you should be able to switch on all the SATA ports, then use the BIOS "identification" screen to verify which ports got a response. Then, if you want, untick the ports that don't have a drive connected. I have had a common Macrium Reflect CD run two computers (allow bootup), but that's not a certainty, more likely just an accident. There could be driver differences between versions of Macrium discs, as to what is included, and I don't want to guess at that. I believe the defaults for the Optiplex 780, are SATA1 and SATA2 enabled, and some RAID mode. SATA3 and SATA4 turned off (as when shipped, the 780 would have a disk drive on SATA1 and an optical drive on SATA2, using up the ports which are switched on). On my computers here, they don't manage their SATA ports that way. The enable/disable is independent of any F1 error. An enabled port with no drive connected, causes not a ripple in the BIOS state. It does not care. It detects whatever drives it can find, compares them to the boot menu, and away it goes. If I use the popup boot key, I can select anything which has been (dynamically) detected. In principle, with two hard drives, you could Original Win7 drive --- restore onto this one Drive with the backup --- boot this one Then remove the backup drive and install the Win10 drive Win7 drive Win10 drive And have no CD in the picture at all at that point. If the machine insists that SATA1 enabled and SATA2 enabled is all that's going to work, that would be a start. ******* The alternative is to do: Original Win7 drive --+ Optical drive connected (boot Macrium CD) | | USB enclosure contains backup MRIMG ---------+ When you want the Win7 setup, use Win7 disk and CD drive: Win7 drive Optical drive When you want the Win10 setup, use Win10 disk and CD drive: Win10 drive Optical drive But personally, I would work on my BIOS skill set, and discover what combination of ports makes three things work. Because ultimately, you are the boss, not the computer, and you really want it to do this. Win7 drive SATA1 Win10 drive SATA2 Optical drive port SATA3 At this point, I'm trying not to meddle with the state of the OSes themselves. Because it gets too complicated, mixing OS-specific recipes with your SATA-activity problem. If the OSes handled driver issues more gracefully, I would be more aggressive in my approach. In Windows 10, you can get it to "consider" changing drivers, if you boot to Safe Mode, then boot in regular mode. It can pick up a hardware change if you do it that way. But Safe Mode doesn't happen by pressing F8 in Windows 10, *unless* you happen to add the black boot screen by using BCDEDIT. Exactly why Microsoft considers this a feature, is a mystery to me. Included in that mystery, is how the black boot screen with the F8 option *disappears* if you're multibooting. HTH, Paul I did as you describe when I had the Win 10 HD and ticked everything and unchecked SATA 3 and 4 then re-ticked them. I agree about getting the BIOS working first. I didn't realize that Win10 doesn't have the F8 option. So I will concentrate on getting everything working on the 780 Win 7 first. Then we can move on. Robert |
#288
|
|||
|
|||
Win7 support:
Well, start giving your partitions labels. In Windows Explorer, just select a drive letter, right-click, and choose properties - there's an obvious box near the top into which you can type a label. Macrium does show these labels. I just checked this for the C: drive and I see what you mean. Thanks,.. I think that would be the easiest way for me identify not to mess up. Robert |
#289
|
|||
|
|||
Win7 support:
On Saturday, August 3, 2019 at 8:02:00 AM UTC-7, Paul wrote:
Robert in CA wrote: On Saturday, August 3, 2019 at 1:20:29 AM UTC-7, Paul wrote: Robert in CA wrote: So do I remove the F1 problem? Robert A "Press F1" error in this case is triggered by enabling a SATA port and not having a SATA drive present. That's probably a good thing when RAID disks are involved, and a dumb idea if RAID is disabled or not desired. You could disable SATA ports when you're not using them. That's perhaps one way to fix the "Press F1" error. My motherboards here, have a "Stop on" [No Error] == other values might be [All errors] [Floppy error] [Whatever error] option, that when an error occurs, the F1 prompt does *not* occur. But your Dell BIOS is pretty clever and will undoubtedly do these things a different way, right ? Paul This is why I removed the data cable and un-ticked the WIN10 HD but you advised not to do that. So should I put the bad Win7 and Win10 back and see if we can resolve the problems because I don't want to mess this HD up. How about this.. remove the present HD and replace with the Win 10 and see if I can get it to load in Safe Mode. Then try install the bad HD and see if I can do a restore but I have a question on that. I obviously needed a rescue disk to clone the 780 backup HD but I don't have a 780 rescue CD so my question is this. 1. can I use the same rescue CD on the 8500 and 780? 2. the 780 CD drive isn't responding so should I redo the boot order so all removable media is on top eg. USB Floppy drives card readers hard drive hard drive Then try and restore the bad drive? Robert Restoring CD/DVD drive operation is pretty important. I would make sure the enabled SATA cables include the CD optical drive port as well. There is one screen in your BIOS, which shows device identifications when the BIOS comes up. By checking that screen, you can tell whether the SATA port is enabled. If the SATA connectors on the motherboard had good silk screen labels on them, this would take the mystery out of figuring out which port is running the optical drive. And it doesn't matter if you hit an F1 during this "adjustment phase". In principle, you should be able to switch on all the SATA ports, then use the BIOS "identification" screen to verify which ports got a response. Then, if you want, untick the ports that don't have a drive connected. I have had a common Macrium Reflect CD run two computers (allow bootup), but that's not a certainty, more likely just an accident. There could be driver differences between versions of Macrium discs, as to what is included, and I don't want to guess at that. I believe the defaults for the Optiplex 780, are SATA1 and SATA2 enabled, and some RAID mode. SATA3 and SATA4 turned off (as when shipped, the 780 would have a disk drive on SATA1 and an optical drive on SATA2, using up the ports which are switched on). On my computers here, they don't manage their SATA ports that way. The enable/disable is independent of any F1 error. An enabled port with no drive connected, causes not a ripple in the BIOS state. It does not care. It detects whatever drives it can find, compares them to the boot menu, and away it goes. If I use the popup boot key, I can select anything which has been (dynamically) detected. In principle, with two hard drives, you could Original Win7 drive --- restore onto this one Drive with the backup --- boot this one Then remove the backup drive and install the Win10 drive Win7 drive Win10 drive And have no CD in the picture at all at that point. If the machine insists that SATA1 enabled and SATA2 enabled is all that's going to work, that would be a start. ******* The alternative is to do: Original Win7 drive --+ Optical drive connected (boot Macrium CD) | | USB enclosure contains backup MRIMG ---------+ When you want the Win7 setup, use Win7 disk and CD drive: Win7 drive Optical drive When you want the Win10 setup, use Win10 disk and CD drive: Win10 drive Optical drive But personally, I would work on my BIOS skill set, and discover what combination of ports makes three things work. Because ultimately, you are the boss, not the computer, and you really want it to do this. Win7 drive SATA1 Win10 drive SATA2 Optical drive port SATA3 At this point, I'm trying not to meddle with the state of the OSes themselves. Because it gets too complicated, mixing OS-specific recipes with your SATA-activity problem. If the OSes handled driver issues more gracefully, I would be more aggressive in my approach. In Windows 10, you can get it to "consider" changing drivers, if you boot to Safe Mode, then boot in regular mode. It can pick up a hardware change if you do it that way. But Safe Mode doesn't happen by pressing F8 in Windows 10, *unless* you happen to add the black boot screen by using BCDEDIT. Exactly why Microsoft considers this a feature, is a mystery to me. Included in that mystery, is how the black boot screen with the F8 option *disappears* if you're multibooting. HTH, Paul On Saturday, August 3, 2019 at 8:02:00 AM UTC-7, Paul wrote: Robert in CA wrote: On Saturday, August 3, 2019 at 1:20:29 AM UTC-7, Paul wrote: Robert in CA wrote: So do I remove the F1 problem? Robert A "Press F1" error in this case is triggered by enabling a SATA port and not having a SATA drive present. That's probably a good thing when RAID disks are involved, and a dumb idea if RAID is disabled or not desired. You could disable SATA ports when you're not using them. That's perhaps one way to fix the "Press F1" error. My motherboards here, have a "Stop on" [No Error] == other values might be [All errors] [Floppy error] [Whatever error] option, that when an error occurs, the F1 prompt does *not* occur. But your Dell BIOS is pretty clever and will undoubtedly do these things a different way, right ? Paul This is why I removed the data cable and un-ticked the WIN10 HD but you advised not to do that. So should I put the bad Win7 and Win10 back and see if we can resolve the problems because I don't want to mess this HD up. How about this.. remove the present HD and replace with the Win 10 and see if I can get it to load in Safe Mode. Then try install the bad HD and see if I can do a restore but I have a question on that. I obviously needed a rescue disk to clone the 780 backup HD but I don't have a 780 rescue CD so my question is this. 1. can I use the same rescue CD on the 8500 and 780? 2. the 780 CD drive isn't responding so should I redo the boot order so all removable media is on top eg. USB Floppy drives card readers hard drive hard drive Then try and restore the bad drive? Robert Restoring CD/DVD drive operation is pretty important. I would make sure the enabled SATA cables include the CD optical drive port as well. There is one screen in your BIOS, which shows device identifications when the BIOS comes up. By checking that screen, you can tell whether the SATA port is enabled. If the SATA connectors on the motherboard had good silk screen labels on them, this would take the mystery out of figuring out which port is running the optical drive. And it doesn't matter if you hit an F1 during this "adjustment phase". In principle, you should be able to switch on all the SATA ports, then use the BIOS "identification" screen to verify which ports got a response. Then, if you want, untick the ports that don't have a drive connected. I have had a common Macrium Reflect CD run two computers (allow bootup), but that's not a certainty, more likely just an accident. There could be driver differences between versions of Macrium discs, as to what is included, and I don't want to guess at that. I believe the defaults for the Optiplex 780, are SATA1 and SATA2 enabled, and some RAID mode. SATA3 and SATA4 turned off (as when shipped, the 780 would have a disk drive on SATA1 and an optical drive on SATA2, using up the ports which are switched on). On my computers here, they don't manage their SATA ports that way. The enable/disable is independent of any F1 error. An enabled port with no drive connected, causes not a ripple in the BIOS state. It does not care. It detects whatever drives it can find, compares them to the boot menu, and away it goes. If I use the popup boot key, I can select anything which has been (dynamically) detected. In principle, with two hard drives, you could Original Win7 drive --- restore onto this one Drive with the backup --- boot this one Then remove the backup drive and install the Win10 drive Win7 drive Win10 drive And have no CD in the picture at all at that point. If the machine insists that SATA1 enabled and SATA2 enabled is all that's going to work, that would be a start. ******* The alternative is to do: Original Win7 drive --+ Optical drive connected (boot Macrium CD) | | USB enclosure contains backup MRIMG ---------+ When you want the Win7 setup, use Win7 disk and CD drive: Win7 drive Optical drive When you want the Win10 setup, use Win10 disk and CD drive: Win10 drive Optical drive But personally, I would work on my BIOS skill set, and discover what combination of ports makes three things work. Because ultimately, you are the boss, not the computer, and you really want it to do this. Win7 drive SATA1 Win10 drive SATA2 Optical drive port SATA3 At this point, I'm trying not to meddle with the state of the OSes themselves. Because it gets too complicated, mixing OS-specific recipes with your SATA-activity problem. If the OSes handled driver issues more gracefully, I would be more aggressive in my approach. In Windows 10, you can get it to "consider" changing drivers, if you boot to Safe Mode, then boot in regular mode. It can pick up a hardware change if you do it that way. But Safe Mode doesn't happen by pressing F8 in Windows 10, *unless* you happen to add the black boot screen by using BCDEDIT. Exactly why Microsoft considers this a feature, is a mystery to me. Included in that mystery, is how the black boot screen with the F8 option *disappears* if you're multibooting. HTH, Paul I went back and changed the boot order and then tried a CD so it works! https://postimg.cc/WFyv0Z8b https://postimg.cc/DShKQnrs I still need to resolve the F1 but were making progress. Robert |
#290
|
|||
|
|||
Win7 support:
Well, start giving your partitions labels. In Windows Explorer, just select a drive letter, right-click, and choose properties - there's an obvious box near the top into which you can type a label. Macrium does show these labels. I just labeled my external HD with all the Mrimgs so I shouldn't have any more proberms trying to figure out which HD is which. Thanks, Robert |
#291
|
|||
|
|||
Win7 support:
This is no big deal
Something else I noticed,.. I started SuperAntispyware and it's showing the last time run was 297 days ago. Remember, I still had not restored this drive although it doesn't really seem necessary at this point since I keep virtually nothing on the 780 and is only a backup computer but I had run this just a day or so ago so why is it saying 297? Robert |
#292
|
|||
|
|||
Win7 support:
On Saturday, August 3, 2019 at 8:58:53 AM UTC-7, Robert in CA wrote:
This is no big deal Something else I noticed,.. I started SuperAntispyware and it's showing the last time run was 297 days ago. Remember, I still had not restored this drive although it doesn't really seem necessary at this point since I keep virtually nothing on the 780 and is only a backup computer but I had run this just a day or so ago so why is it saying 297? Robert On Saturday, August 3, 2019 at 8:58:53 AM UTC-7, Robert in CA wrote: This is no big deal Something else I noticed,.. I started SuperAntispyware and it's showing the last time run was 297 days ago. Remember, I still had not restored this drive although it doesn't really seem necessary at this point since I keep virtually nothing on the 780 and is only a backup computer but I had run this just a day or so ago so why is it saying 297? Robert ahhh I know why it did that,.. I was still on the Admin Account which I don't go to all that much. Robert |
#293
|
|||
|
|||
Win7 support:
On Saturday, August 3, 2019 at 8:18:23 AM UTC-7, Robert in CA wrote:
On Saturday, August 3, 2019 at 8:02:00 AM UTC-7, Paul wrote: Robert in CA wrote: On Saturday, August 3, 2019 at 1:20:29 AM UTC-7, Paul wrote: Robert in CA wrote: So do I remove the F1 problem? Robert A "Press F1" error in this case is triggered by enabling a SATA port and not having a SATA drive present. That's probably a good thing when RAID disks are involved, and a dumb idea if RAID is disabled or not desired. You could disable SATA ports when you're not using them. That's perhaps one way to fix the "Press F1" error. My motherboards here, have a "Stop on" [No Error] == other values might be [All errors] [Floppy error] [Whatever error] option, that when an error occurs, the F1 prompt does *not* occur. But your Dell BIOS is pretty clever and will undoubtedly do these things a different way, right ? Paul This is why I removed the data cable and un-ticked the WIN10 HD but you advised not to do that. So should I put the bad Win7 and Win10 back and see if we can resolve the problems because I don't want to mess this HD up. How about this.. remove the present HD and replace with the Win 10 and see if I can get it to load in Safe Mode. Then try install the bad HD and see if I can do a restore but I have a question on that. I obviously needed a rescue disk to clone the 780 backup HD but I don't have a 780 rescue CD so my question is this. 1. can I use the same rescue CD on the 8500 and 780? 2. the 780 CD drive isn't responding so should I redo the boot order so all removable media is on top eg. USB Floppy drives card readers hard drive hard drive Then try and restore the bad drive? Robert Restoring CD/DVD drive operation is pretty important. I would make sure the enabled SATA cables include the CD optical drive port as well. There is one screen in your BIOS, which shows device identifications when the BIOS comes up. By checking that screen, you can tell whether the SATA port is enabled. If the SATA connectors on the motherboard had good silk screen labels on them, this would take the mystery out of figuring out which port is running the optical drive. And it doesn't matter if you hit an F1 during this "adjustment phase". In principle, you should be able to switch on all the SATA ports, then use the BIOS "identification" screen to verify which ports got a response. Then, if you want, untick the ports that don't have a drive connected. I have had a common Macrium Reflect CD run two computers (allow bootup), but that's not a certainty, more likely just an accident. There could be driver differences between versions of Macrium discs, as to what is included, and I don't want to guess at that. I believe the defaults for the Optiplex 780, are SATA1 and SATA2 enabled, and some RAID mode. SATA3 and SATA4 turned off (as when shipped, the 780 would have a disk drive on SATA1 and an optical drive on SATA2, using up the ports which are switched on). On my computers here, they don't manage their SATA ports that way. The enable/disable is independent of any F1 error. An enabled port with no drive connected, causes not a ripple in the BIOS state. It does not care. It detects whatever drives it can find, compares them to the boot menu, and away it goes. If I use the popup boot key, I can select anything which has been (dynamically) detected. In principle, with two hard drives, you could Original Win7 drive --- restore onto this one Drive with the backup --- boot this one Then remove the backup drive and install the Win10 drive Win7 drive Win10 drive And have no CD in the picture at all at that point. If the machine insists that SATA1 enabled and SATA2 enabled is all that's going to work, that would be a start. ******* The alternative is to do: Original Win7 drive --+ Optical drive connected (boot Macrium CD) | | USB enclosure contains backup MRIMG ---------+ When you want the Win7 setup, use Win7 disk and CD drive: Win7 drive Optical drive When you want the Win10 setup, use Win10 disk and CD drive: Win10 drive Optical drive But personally, I would work on my BIOS skill set, and discover what combination of ports makes three things work. Because ultimately, you are the boss, not the computer, and you really want it to do this. Win7 drive SATA1 Win10 drive SATA2 Optical drive port SATA3 At this point, I'm trying not to meddle with the state of the OSes themselves. Because it gets too complicated, mixing OS-specific recipes with your SATA-activity problem. If the OSes handled driver issues more gracefully, I would be more aggressive in my approach. In Windows 10, you can get it to "consider" changing drivers, if you boot to Safe Mode, then boot in regular mode. It can pick up a hardware change if you do it that way. But Safe Mode doesn't happen by pressing F8 in Windows 10, *unless* you happen to add the black boot screen by using BCDEDIT. Exactly why Microsoft considers this a feature, is a mystery to me. Included in that mystery, is how the black boot screen with the F8 option *disappears* if you're multibooting. HTH, Paul I did as you describe when I had the Win 10 HD and ticked everything and unchecked SATA 3 and 4 then re-ticked them. I agree about getting the BIOS working first. I didn't realize that Win10 doesn't have the F8 option. So I will concentrate on getting everything working on the 780 Win 7 first. Then we can move on. Robert As you say we can live with the F1 Should I go back and un-tick these? I think at this point I would like to try restoring the bad HD with WIn7 as you suggest and if all goes well then remove the good Win7 HD and install Win10 again with the restored Win 7HD and go from there. On Saturday, August 3, 2019 at 8:18:23 AM UTC-7, Robert in CA wrote: On Saturday, August 3, 2019 at 8:02:00 AM UTC-7, Paul wrote: Robert in CA wrote: On Saturday, August 3, 2019 at 1:20:29 AM UTC-7, Paul wrote: Robert in CA wrote: So do I remove the F1 problem? Robert A "Press F1" error in this case is triggered by enabling a SATA port and not having a SATA drive present. That's probably a good thing when RAID disks are involved, and a dumb idea if RAID is disabled or not desired. You could disable SATA ports when you're not using them. That's perhaps one way to fix the "Press F1" error. My motherboards here, have a "Stop on" [No Error] == other values might be [All errors] [Floppy error] [Whatever error] option, that when an error occurs, the F1 prompt does *not* occur. But your Dell BIOS is pretty clever and will undoubtedly do these things a different way, right ? Paul This is why I removed the data cable and un-ticked the WIN10 HD but you advised not to do that. So should I put the bad Win7 and Win10 back and see if we can resolve the problems because I don't want to mess this HD up. How about this.. remove the present HD and replace with the Win 10 and see if I can get it to load in Safe Mode. Then try install the bad HD and see if I can do a restore but I have a question on that. I obviously needed a rescue disk to clone the 780 backup HD but I don't have a 780 rescue CD so my question is this. 1. can I use the same rescue CD on the 8500 and 780? 2. the 780 CD drive isn't responding so should I redo the boot order so all removable media is on top eg. USB Floppy drives card readers hard drive hard drive Then try and restore the bad drive? Robert Restoring CD/DVD drive operation is pretty important. I would make sure the enabled SATA cables include the CD optical drive port as well. There is one screen in your BIOS, which shows device identifications when the BIOS comes up. By checking that screen, you can tell whether the SATA port is enabled. If the SATA connectors on the motherboard had good silk screen labels on them, this would take the mystery out of figuring out which port is running the optical drive. And it doesn't matter if you hit an F1 during this "adjustment phase". In principle, you should be able to switch on all the SATA ports, then use the BIOS "identification" screen to verify which ports got a response. Then, if you want, untick the ports that don't have a drive connected. I have had a common Macrium Reflect CD run two computers (allow bootup), but that's not a certainty, more likely just an accident. There could be driver differences between versions of Macrium discs, as to what is included, and I don't want to guess at that. I believe the defaults for the Optiplex 780, are SATA1 and SATA2 enabled, and some RAID mode. SATA3 and SATA4 turned off (as when shipped, the 780 would have a disk drive on SATA1 and an optical drive on SATA2, using up the ports which are switched on). On my computers here, they don't manage their SATA ports that way. The enable/disable is independent of any F1 error. An enabled port with no drive connected, causes not a ripple in the BIOS state. It does not care. It detects whatever drives it can find, compares them to the boot menu, and away it goes. If I use the popup boot key, I can select anything which has been (dynamically) detected. In principle, with two hard drives, you could Original Win7 drive --- restore onto this one Drive with the backup --- boot this one Then remove the backup drive and install the Win10 drive Win7 drive Win10 drive And have no CD in the picture at all at that point. If the machine insists that SATA1 enabled and SATA2 enabled is all that's going to work, that would be a start. ******* The alternative is to do: Original Win7 drive --+ Optical drive connected (boot Macrium CD) | | USB enclosure contains backup MRIMG ---------+ When you want the Win7 setup, use Win7 disk and CD drive: Win7 drive Optical drive When you want the Win10 setup, use Win10 disk and CD drive: Win10 drive Optical drive But personally, I would work on my BIOS skill set, and discover what combination of ports makes three things work. Because ultimately, you are the boss, not the computer, and you really want it to do this. Win7 drive SATA1 Win10 drive SATA2 Optical drive port SATA3 At this point, I'm trying not to meddle with the state of the OSes themselves. Because it gets too complicated, mixing OS-specific recipes with your SATA-activity problem. If the OSes handled driver issues more gracefully, I would be more aggressive in my approach. In Windows 10, you can get it to "consider" changing drivers, if you boot to Safe Mode, then boot in regular mode. It can pick up a hardware change if you do it that way. But Safe Mode doesn't happen by pressing F8 in Windows 10, *unless* you happen to add the black boot screen by using BCDEDIT. Exactly why Microsoft considers this a feature, is a mystery to me. Included in that mystery, is how the black boot screen with the F8 option *disappears* if you're multibooting. HTH, Paul I did as you describe when I had the Win 10 HD and ticked everything and unchecked SATA 3 and 4 then re-ticked them. I agree about getting the BIOS working first. I didn't realize that Win10 doesn't have the F8 option. So I will concentrate on getting everything working on the 780 Win 7 first. Then we can move on. Robert Should I go back and un-tick SATA 3 and 4? It seems everything is working correctly on the 780 with the exception of the F1 but as you say we can live with the F1 during this adjustment phase. I think at this point I would like to try restoring the bad HD with WIn7 as you suggest and if all goes well then remove the good Win7 HD and install Win10 again with the restored Win 7HD and go from there. What do you think? Robert |
#294
|
|||
|
|||
Win7 support:
On Saturday, August 3, 2019 at 8:02:00 AM UTC-7, Paul wrote:
Robert in CA wrote: On Saturday, August 3, 2019 at 1:20:29 AM UTC-7, Paul wrote: Robert in CA wrote: So do I remove the F1 problem? Robert A "Press F1" error in this case is triggered by enabling a SATA port and not having a SATA drive present. That's probably a good thing when RAID disks are involved, and a dumb idea if RAID is disabled or not desired. You could disable SATA ports when you're not using them. That's perhaps one way to fix the "Press F1" error. My motherboards here, have a "Stop on" [No Error] == other values might be [All errors] [Floppy error] [Whatever error] option, that when an error occurs, the F1 prompt does *not* occur. But your Dell BIOS is pretty clever and will undoubtedly do these things a different way, right ? Paul This is why I removed the data cable and un-ticked the WIN10 HD but you advised not to do that. So should I put the bad Win7 and Win10 back and see if we can resolve the problems because I don't want to mess this HD up. How about this.. remove the present HD and replace with the Win 10 and see if I can get it to load in Safe Mode. Then try install the bad HD and see if I can do a restore but I have a question on that. I obviously needed a rescue disk to clone the 780 backup HD but I don't have a 780 rescue CD so my question is this. 1. can I use the same rescue CD on the 8500 and 780? 2. the 780 CD drive isn't responding so should I redo the boot order so all removable media is on top eg. USB Floppy drives card readers hard drive hard drive Then try and restore the bad drive? Robert Restoring CD/DVD drive operation is pretty important. I would make sure the enabled SATA cables include the CD optical drive port as well. There is one screen in your BIOS, which shows device identifications when the BIOS comes up. By checking that screen, you can tell whether the SATA port is enabled. If the SATA connectors on the motherboard had good silk screen labels on them, this would take the mystery out of figuring out which port is running the optical drive. And it doesn't matter if you hit an F1 during this "adjustment phase". In principle, you should be able to switch on all the SATA ports, then use the BIOS "identification" screen to verify which ports got a response. Then, if you want, untick the ports that don't have a drive connected. I have had a common Macrium Reflect CD run two computers (allow bootup), but that's not a certainty, more likely just an accident. There could be driver differences between versions of Macrium discs, as to what is included, and I don't want to guess at that. I believe the defaults for the Optiplex 780, are SATA1 and SATA2 enabled, and some RAID mode. SATA3 and SATA4 turned off (as when shipped, the 780 would have a disk drive on SATA1 and an optical drive on SATA2, using up the ports which are switched on). On my computers here, they don't manage their SATA ports that way. The enable/disable is independent of any F1 error. An enabled port with no drive connected, causes not a ripple in the BIOS state. It does not care. It detects whatever drives it can find, compares them to the boot menu, and away it goes. If I use the popup boot key, I can select anything which has been (dynamically) detected. In principle, with two hard drives, you could Original Win7 drive --- restore onto this one Drive with the backup --- boot this one Then remove the backup drive and install the Win10 drive Win7 drive Win10 drive And have no CD in the picture at all at that point. If the machine insists that SATA1 enabled and SATA2 enabled is all that's going to work, that would be a start. ******* The alternative is to do: Original Win7 drive --+ Optical drive connected (boot Macrium CD) | | USB enclosure contains backup MRIMG ---------+ When you want the Win7 setup, use Win7 disk and CD drive: Win7 drive Optical drive When you want the Win10 setup, use Win10 disk and CD drive: Win10 drive Optical drive But personally, I would work on my BIOS skill set, and discover what combination of ports makes three things work. Because ultimately, you are the boss, not the computer, and you really want it to do this. Win7 drive SATA1 Win10 drive SATA2 Optical drive port SATA3 At this point, I'm trying not to meddle with the state of the OSes themselves. Because it gets too complicated, mixing OS-specific recipes with your SATA-activity problem. If the OSes handled driver issues more gracefully, I would be more aggressive in my approach. In Windows 10, you can get it to "consider" changing drivers, if you boot to Safe Mode, then boot in regular mode. It can pick up a hardware change if you do it that way. But Safe Mode doesn't happen by pressing F8 in Windows 10, *unless* you happen to add the black boot screen by using BCDEDIT. Exactly why Microsoft considers this a feature, is a mystery to me. Included in that mystery, is how the black boot screen with the F8 option *disappears* if you're multibooting. HTH, Paul On Saturday, August 3, 2019 at 8:02:00 AM UTC-7, Paul wrote: Robert in CA wrote: On Saturday, August 3, 2019 at 1:20:29 AM UTC-7, Paul wrote: Robert in CA wrote: So do I remove the F1 problem? Robert A "Press F1" error in this case is triggered by enabling a SATA port and not having a SATA drive present. That's probably a good thing when RAID disks are involved, and a dumb idea if RAID is disabled or not desired. You could disable SATA ports when you're not using them. That's perhaps one way to fix the "Press F1" error. My motherboards here, have a "Stop on" [No Error] == other values might be [All errors] [Floppy error] [Whatever error] option, that when an error occurs, the F1 prompt does *not* occur. But your Dell BIOS is pretty clever and will undoubtedly do these things a different way, right ? Paul This is why I removed the data cable and un-ticked the WIN10 HD but you advised not to do that. So should I put the bad Win7 and Win10 back and see if we can resolve the problems because I don't want to mess this HD up. How about this.. remove the present HD and replace with the Win 10 and see if I can get it to load in Safe Mode. Then try install the bad HD and see if I can do a restore but I have a question on that. I obviously needed a rescue disk to clone the 780 backup HD but I don't have a 780 rescue CD so my question is this. 1. can I use the same rescue CD on the 8500 and 780? 2. the 780 CD drive isn't responding so should I redo the boot order so all removable media is on top eg. USB Floppy drives card readers hard drive hard drive Then try and restore the bad drive? Robert Restoring CD/DVD drive operation is pretty important. I would make sure the enabled SATA cables include the CD optical drive port as well. There is one screen in your BIOS, which shows device identifications when the BIOS comes up. By checking that screen, you can tell whether the SATA port is enabled. If the SATA connectors on the motherboard had good silk screen labels on them, this would take the mystery out of figuring out which port is running the optical drive. And it doesn't matter if you hit an F1 during this "adjustment phase". In principle, you should be able to switch on all the SATA ports, then use the BIOS "identification" screen to verify which ports got a response. Then, if you want, untick the ports that don't have a drive connected. I have had a common Macrium Reflect CD run two computers (allow bootup), but that's not a certainty, more likely just an accident. There could be driver differences between versions of Macrium discs, as to what is included, and I don't want to guess at that. I believe the defaults for the Optiplex 780, are SATA1 and SATA2 enabled, and some RAID mode. SATA3 and SATA4 turned off (as when shipped, the 780 would have a disk drive on SATA1 and an optical drive on SATA2, using up the ports which are switched on). On my computers here, they don't manage their SATA ports that way. The enable/disable is independent of any F1 error. An enabled port with no drive connected, causes not a ripple in the BIOS state. It does not care. It detects whatever drives it can find, compares them to the boot menu, and away it goes. If I use the popup boot key, I can select anything which has been (dynamically) detected. In principle, with two hard drives, you could Original Win7 drive --- restore onto this one Drive with the backup --- boot this one Then remove the backup drive and install the Win10 drive Win7 drive Win10 drive And have no CD in the picture at all at that point. If the machine insists that SATA1 enabled and SATA2 enabled is all that's going to work, that would be a start. ******* The alternative is to do: Original Win7 drive --+ Optical drive connected (boot Macrium CD) | | USB enclosure contains backup MRIMG ---------+ When you want the Win7 setup, use Win7 disk and CD drive: Win7 drive Optical drive When you want the Win10 setup, use Win10 disk and CD drive: Win10 drive Optical drive But personally, I would work on my BIOS skill set, and discover what combination of ports makes three things work. Because ultimately, you are the boss, not the computer, and you really want it to do this. Win7 drive SATA1 Win10 drive SATA2 Optical drive port SATA3 At this point, I'm trying not to meddle with the state of the OSes themselves. Because it gets too complicated, mixing OS-specific recipes with your SATA-activity problem. If the OSes handled driver issues more gracefully, I would be more aggressive in my approach. In Windows 10, you can get it to "consider" changing drivers, if you boot to Safe Mode, then boot in regular mode. It can pick up a hardware change if you do it that way. But Safe Mode doesn't happen by pressing F8 in Windows 10, *unless* you happen to add the black boot screen by using BCDEDIT. Exactly why Microsoft considers this a feature, is a mystery to me. Included in that mystery, is how the black boot screen with the F8 option *disappears* if you're multibooting. HTH, Paul Should I go back and un-tick SATA 3 and 4? It seems everything is working correctly on the 780 with the exception of the F1 but as you say we can live with the F1 during this adjustment phase. I think at this point I would like to try restoring the bad HD with WIn7 as you suggest and if all goes well then remove the good Win7 HD and install Win10 again with the restored Win 7HD and go from there. What do you think? Robert |
#295
|
|||
|
|||
Win7 support:
Robert in CA wrote:
Should I go back and un-tick SATA 3 and 4? It seems everything is working correctly on the 780 with the exception of the F1 but as you say we can live with the F1 during this adjustment phase. I think at this point I would like to try restoring the bad HD with WIn7 as you suggest and if all goes well then remove the good Win7 HD and install Win10 again with the restored Win 7HD and go from there. What do you think? Robert You know the conditions in front of you, better than I do. As long as there's no chance of anything getting broken, it's a computer, it's meant for experiments :-) If you want to reinstall something, you can. You have a good backup, and can go back to Square One if things are not working out. ******* In principle, you could keep "stuff that doesn't matter", connected to the SATA ports to keep them "busy". That would be one way to stop the F1... For example, I can find an SSD for $18. And this could keep an electrical signal on a SATA data port. You'd need a data cable plus some sort of power cabling. The chassis of the SSD (the metal ones) is grounded, so you can rest them on top of other grounded items for mechanical support. I have been laying the ones I own on the bottom of the computer case (making sure they don't get in the way when closing the door and so on). I also rest SSDs on top of hard drives (as the hard drive body is grounded too). https://www.newegg.com/team-group-gx...82E16820331317 You don't have to do that, and it's just an example of how to keep pesky SATA ports occupied. The drive doesn't even have to be formatted particularly. It can just sit there. Paul |
#296
|
|||
|
|||
Win7 support:
In message , Paul
writes: [] I believe the defaults for the Optiplex 780, are SATA1 and SATA2 enabled, and some RAID mode. SATA3 and SATA4 turned off (as when shipped, the 780 would have a disk drive on SATA1 and an optical drive on SATA2, using up the ports which are switched on). [] Why would it default to some RAID mode, if it's only expecting one HD? -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf Find out what works. Then do it. That's my system. I'm always surprised it isn't more popular. - Scott Adams, 2015 |
#297
|
|||
|
|||
Win7 support:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul writes: [] I believe the defaults for the Optiplex 780, are SATA1 and SATA2 enabled, and some RAID mode. SATA3 and SATA4 turned off (as when shipped, the 780 would have a disk drive on SATA1 and an optical drive on SATA2, using up the ports which are switched on). [] Why would it default to some RAID mode, if it's only expecting one HD? The design is obnoxious. Someone in a Dell forum was basically asking the same thing. What were they thinking ? Now, I know from a "featuritis" point of view, they love to set up disks so "RAID migration" is possible. NVidia made RAID Migration a major feature in their stuff. What these companies just don't get, is how useless RAID is. It's like a hood ornament on a car - adds air resistance, doesn't do anything. A backup is just as good as a RAID plus backup system, mainly because the RAID is dangerous and not understood by most owners, and there are bound to be surprises and data loss "before they get it". That's what I was finding with people working through RAID disasters - they hadn't spent the time testing it. So why it's a standard feature, is a genuine mystery. It should be an option, that only knowledgeable people can find. Then, if you don't know what RAID is, chances are you'll never suffer as a result of the existence of a RAID setting. Paul |
#298
|
|||
|
|||
Win7 support:
On Saturday, August 3, 2019 at 2:44:10 PM UTC-7, Paul wrote:
Robert in CA wrote: Should I go back and un-tick SATA 3 and 4? It seems everything is working correctly on the 780 with the exception of the F1 but as you say we can live with the F1 during this adjustment phase. I think at this point I would like to try restoring the bad HD with WIn7 as you suggest and if all goes well then remove the good Win7 HD and install Win10 again with the restored Win 7HD and go from there. What do you think? Robert You know the conditions in front of you, better than I do. As long as there's no chance of anything getting broken, it's a computer, it's meant for experiments :-) If you want to reinstall something, you can. You have a good backup, and can go back to Square One if things are not working out. ******* In principle, you could keep "stuff that doesn't matter", connected to the SATA ports to keep them "busy". That would be one way to stop the F1... For example, I can find an SSD for $18. And this could keep an electrical signal on a SATA data port. You'd need a data cable plus some sort of power cabling. The chassis of the SSD (the metal ones) is grounded, so you can rest them on top of other grounded items for mechanical support. I have been laying the ones I own on the bottom of the computer case (making sure they don't get in the way when closing the door and so on). I also rest SSDs on top of hard drives (as the hard drive body is grounded too). https://www.newegg.com/team-group-gx...82E16820331317 You don't have to do that, and it's just an example of how to keep pesky SATA ports occupied. The drive doesn't even have to be formatted particularly. It can just sit there. Paul On Saturday, August 3, 2019 at 2:44:10 PM UTC-7, Paul wrote: Robert in CA wrote: Should I go back and un-tick SATA 3 and 4? It seems everything is working correctly on the 780 with the exception of the F1 but as you say we can live with the F1 during this adjustment phase. I think at this point I would like to try restoring the bad HD with WIn7 as you suggest and if all goes well then remove the good Win7 HD and install Win10 again with the restored Win 7HD and go from there. What do you think? Robert You know the conditions in front of you, better than I do. As long as there's no chance of anything getting broken, it's a computer, it's meant for experiments :-) If you want to reinstall something, you can. You have a good backup, and can go back to Square One if things are not working out. ******* In principle, you could keep "stuff that doesn't matter", connected to the SATA ports to keep them "busy". That would be one way to stop the F1... For example, I can find an SSD for $18. And this could keep an electrical signal on a SATA data port. You'd need a data cable plus some sort of power cabling. The chassis of the SSD (the metal ones) is grounded, so you can rest them on top of other grounded items for mechanical support. I have been laying the ones I own on the bottom of the computer case (making sure they don't get in the way when closing the door and so on). I also rest SSDs on top of hard drives (as the hard drive body is grounded too). https://www.newegg.com/team-group-gx...82E16820331317 You don't have to do that, and it's just an example of how to keep pesky SATA ports occupied. The drive doesn't even have to be formatted particularly. It can just sit there. Paul Your suggesting I buy SSD to eliminate the F1 problem? Is there no other way? which mean I have to buy more cables and (2) SSD's. I removed the good HD(Win7) and put in the bad HD(Win7) tried to do a restore btw the label I put on the external HD with the Mrimgs didn't show up in Macrium although for some reason it's clearly labeled from the destination. I think I messed up royally,.. I should of selected build rescue media and now it wont boot into Windows at all. So what can I do to recover or is this HD toast? https://postimg.cc/2V9VQPzY https://postimg.cc/ZW90VVRd https://postimg.cc/FdvRFvxy https://postimg.cc/23z6Pzym https://postimg.cc/qNCM8qbc https://postimg.cc/jwRx0Xsv https://postimg.cc/5XvbXGyn https://postimg.cc/R3B9KRn9 https://postimg.cc/5YPVcWKN https://postimg.cc/8fjVNXxd Robert |
#299
|
|||
|
|||
Win7 support:
I'm not exactly understanding ,.... should I tick or untick the SATA 3, 4 now? Of course its a mute point since I can't even login to Win 7 on the 780. Robert |
#300
|
|||
|
|||
Win7 support:
Robert in CA wrote:
I'm not exactly understanding ,.... should I tick or untick the SATA 3, 4 now? Of course its a mute point since I can't even login to Win 7 on the 780. Robert From a "Press F1" point of view, you should enable the SATA ports you need. ******* The 840 page spec for your Southbridge, shows four options. Consumer Family * Intel 82801JIB ICH10 Consumer Base (ICH10) * Intel 82801JIR ICH10 RAID (ICH10R) Corporate Family * Intel 82801JD ICH10 Corporate Base (ICH10D) * Intel 82801JDO ICH10 Digital Office (ICH10DO) === Your Southbridge The Hardware identifiers are covered in a "Spec Update" document. The main spec does not typically list them. 319973__ICH10R.pdf 319974__ICH10R_specupd.pdf === hardware identifier numbers tell us the mode. I looked up this info back in 2012 or so. This is an archived USENET post. http://al.howardknight.net/msgid.cgi...nt-email.me%3E When your BIOS makes choices for the operating modes of the hardware, something like "lspci" in Linux can dump the numbers and show what mode the Southbridge is in, on the SATA ports. The problem in Windows is, the system might not boot, if the settings are too "abnormal". If it could boot, I might use Lavalys Everest or similar in Windows. Generally, it's not a problem figuring out a way to get Linux to boot (USB works, whereas Windows, that's a lot harder to arrange). Feature Corporate ICH10 Digital Office === yours, on the 780 -------------------- AHCI Yes RAID0/1/5/10 Yes Corporate SKUs... D31:F21 SATA 3A00h 02h Non-AHCI and Non-RAID Mode (Ports 0,1,2 and 3) 3A02h 02h AHCI Mode (Ports 0-5) 3A05h 02h RAID 0/1/5/10 Mode D31:F51 SATA 3A06h 02h Non-AHCI and Non-RAID Mode (Ports 4 and 5) Modes which apply to all six ports, show up as D31:F21, such as 3A02h 02h AHCI Mode (Ports 0-5) 3A05h 02h RAID 0/1/5/10 Mode The hardware is actually split into two blocks for compatible mode. Ports 0..3 are one group (Win98 compatible in a sense). Port 4..5 are a second group. D31:F21 SATA 3A00h 02h Non-AHCI and Non-RAID Mode (Ports 0,1,2 and 3) D31:F51 SATA 3A06h 02h Non-AHCI and Non-RAID Mode (Ports 4 and 5) There is usually a class code associated with them as well (CC01, CC03 or whatever). ******* The reason for me telling you this, is it is possible to study how the BIOS controls interact, and what happens to the chipset setup when using various options. In this case, it's not the modes themselves which are mysterious. It's the usage of words like "Auto" in the BIOS that are a mystery. Normally when you select a mode, it should never matter what the ports themselves are doing (whether hardware is connected or not, should not matter, the hardware just doesn't care if you don't use it). Your particular BIOS seems to have a feature like 1) Apply a setting. 2) Sniff. 3) If it smells funny, use a second settings choice. And normally BIOS don't go to that much trouble. Normally, most computers, it's 1) Apply a setting. Good luck, buddy. Then if it doesn't boot, it's all your fault. So if I was there in the room, I could probably attempt to try the various BIOS settings and "read out" some mode info. The purpose of doing that extra work, is to figure out which tick boxes in the RAID page, are "safe" to use without tipping over one of the hard drives. ******* Here is an example of a customer feeling around in the dark. The same way I'm feeling around in the dark. https://www.dell.com/community/Deskt...s/td-p/4609696 Raid Autodetect ACHI Intel ICH10 Family 6 port AHCI - 3A02, version 7.0.0.1013 So what the Autodetect did in that case, is selected 3A02 instead of 3A05 from the above table. Presumably if it had "sniffed" drives set up as RAID, it would have changed the device identifier to 3A05. The unfortunate part of this, is for both Win7 and Win10, switching back and forth between 3A02 and 3A05 has consequences. There are two drivers. Windows itself has MSAHCI (would work with 3A02). There is also IASTORV (IASTOR for Vista, a RAID driver). There is the Intel RST driver for RAID. There is the floppy txtsetup.oem driver with AHCI and RAID in the same folder (should make it easy to transition from one to the other). I think that one is IASTOR. And this means, when you want to "transition" an OS from 3A02 to 3A05... !) Need to know the driver currently being used. 2) Need to learn how driver rearm works in the OS. Win7 has some registry work. Win10, booting to Safe Mode, followed by booting in Regular Mode, should pick up the required driver automatically. I'm trying to give you some idea what kind of work an IT guy has to do, to deal with the situation you're in which is to namely: 1) Put the machine in a "mode" that is "most useful". 2) Modify *all* drives that fit into the machine normally, so they work with the "chosen" setting. For mere mortals, this is a tall order, and more than a mornings work. And I've fallen into that trap before, of selecting the wrong mode when I first got a computer, and then later realizing what a mess I had to clean up. But at least I don't use RAID :-/ I have done experiments with RAID mode, but these experiments only last a couple days, followed by a cleaning cycle. (You must *properly* clean RAID drives after use. The metadata must be removed, while plugged into a non-RAID port.) This is the thinking on Windows 7. Windows 8 has a second set of registry things that need editing. On Windows 8, the complexity suggests there is a GPEDIT setting to control this. Some keywords: pciide, msahci, iaStorV, iaStor, CurrentControlSet, (driver rearm) http://www.overclockers.com/forums/s...d.php?t=698531 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\servic es\pciide Start DWORD 3 == 0 # allows it to check for IDE mode HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\servic es\msahci Start DWORD 3 == 0 # allows it to check for AHCI mode (Microsoft driver) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\servic es\iaStorV Start DWORD 3 == 0 # allows it to check for IAStor Vista (RAID) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\servic es\iaStor Start DWORD 3 == 0 # allows it to check for Intel version (user installed) The best part of those, is you can turn all of them on, and at least one of them will "take" at boot time. In other words, even if you're a clumsy oaf, and screw up the BIOS, if you do that to the OS first, there won't be a consequence. The method would be: 1) Use Regedit to set those. 2) Exit Regedit. 3) Shut down computer. 4) Start computer, enter BIOS. 5) Set storage mode to "new choice", say Autodetect AHCI 6) Windows 7 boots, and is now using the MSAHCI driver. Whereas on Windows 10, you set it up to boot in Safe Mode. Safe mode is available by pressing F8 in this screen. https://i.postimg.cc/0NVZWSnj/f8-in-boot-menu.gif As administrator, to get that black screen, you can do it offline (if the OS won't run): dir /AH C:\boot\BCD # verify it is there, it could be in system reserved bcdedit /store C:\boot\BCD /set {bootmgr} displaybootmenu True Whereas if Windows 10 was running at the time, it might be: bcdedit /set {bootmgr} displaybootmenu True Then on the next Win10 reboot, verify the black screen appears for 30 seconds. Paul |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|