I have got a real situation here!

My m15x is not booting up!!
I was trying to move my m15x away from my desk yesterday so I shut down the system and then unplugged all USB peripherals and the power. When I tried to boot it up without all those things around, it just stopped at the middle with a single white cursor flashing. There is nothing on the screen and tapping all the keys was not able to get anything else. I flashed A05 BIOS a few days ago and it worked well until yesterday.

My config is as follow:
Intel i3 330M
4GB 1333MHZ DDR3
Nvidia GT240M 1GB
OCZ Vertex 120GB SSD (added)
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

I'm wondering if BIOS A05 fixed the problem of ATA mode? I have tried both ATA and AHCI mode but none of them worked
The new BIOS is still reporting that my m15x is running in single channel mode, is it true?

I have tried to clear the CMOS and ran the diagnostics and there are no problem with the system.
In addition, I have successfully boot with the recovery DVD but I'm not going to reinstall the operating system unless it's the only solution.

 

We're you able to boot to Windows in safe mode?

 

see if you can run the windows in repair mode.

 

My M17x does the flashing cursor, but then enters Windows 7 without issue.

 

How can I enter safe mode?
I have tried pressing F8 but nothing showed up.

 

OK, it sounds like you have a more serious problem, if you aren't even getting that far.

Did you reconnect everything and try booting up? I had a similar problem; I put my laptop into sleep mode with a usb harddrive attached, removed it, and it was acting flakey until I rebooted with the units attached again.

 

I did reconnect everything and reboot the system but that does not help

Is repair mode same as safe mode? I have not tried other 'mode' except F8.

 

And you weren't using RAID. Unless your SSD broke, sorry, I am out of ideas right now.

 

I'm not bumping my machine so the chance of breaking it physically is small.
I'm not running in any RAID mode neither.

 

you have another harddrive you can swap out, see if it boots up with that?

 

I'll try that later

 

Maybe you can go into safe or repair mode if you manually shut down while its booting up.

 

There isn't any safe mode showing up anyway

 

Have you tried checking the boot order in the bios?

It sounds like the computer is trying to boot into say your USB, finding no OS, it is giving the blinking cursor.

 

but I've already sleceted HDD as the first boot device
I've also tried to select manually the HDD as the boot device in the F12 boot menu
I have exam to do soon and I can't believe that my machine got freezed at this time!

 

Using the CD, are you able to restore to an earlier point in time?
If the diagnostics show everything to be okay; it sounds like either a bad BIOS flash, or a Windows 7 issue.

I figure trying Windows first to be easier....

 

Try F2 to get into the BIOS. If you can - change the boot order to CD first and then boot up the windows recovery CD to see if you can repair windows, (look to run check/fix disk to repair any HDD issues first as this might very well be the issue)

EDIT - You will need to install the SATA drivers for your HDD when you boot up windows so get it downloaded from the Dell website if possible otherwise you will not be able to see the disk. I think you have to press F6 just after you start to load the windows components, (I can't remember exactly ))

 

If your computer won't recognize the disk then you need to plug it into another computer through a USB external enclosure, or into another HDD slot in a computer with a working HDD. Then go to "disk management" I think thats what it is. You can type that into the start menu. Then you just format the disk. I did this lastnight. Had a similiar problem. The disk just needs to be initialized. Then you can proceed with a new install. The external enclosure can be had for a few bucks at a best buy most likely.

 

I think he was hoping to avoid that, but I agree it is seeming like he is running out of options. Especially since he said he checked his BIOS.

 

Truthfully, it is looking like you are going to have to reinstall the OS. I had simillar problems with 2 or my Windows 7 machines. Corrupted randomly to the point of not booting. Either it is the OS itself or a virus out there noone can find. And yes, reinstalling was my only other option.
If you did have another hard drive, or hard drive partition free, you could install a temporary windows on the second drive and try to repair the first windows later. I know that is allot of trouble and you are under a deadline, but at least it will get you going with the most options for the future.

 

A HDD can be easily fixed as long as you can boot up on the windows CD - I have done it a few times in the past. The CD gives you an option to repair windows and the HDD sectors. The only issue is making sure you have the SATA drivers for you HDD as they are not part of the Windows Live install.

 

Actually which CD should I use?
I've got 2 CDs namely, 'M15X RESOURCE DVD' and 'MICROSOFT WINDOWS 7 HOME PREMIUM 64-bit'
When I use the 'WINDOWS' DVD to boot up my system, the only option it shows me is installing fresh Windows which is clearly not my first choice

 

I'm able to see my SSD in the BIOS. Does it mean that I'm not required to install any other drivers?

 

I've done the diagnostics with the 'M15X RESOURCE DVD' and it seems that there is a problem with the HDD.
I'm not sure if this is an error as I have a non-original HDD installed.

 

You need both disks. The Win 7 dvd will install the O/S, the resourse DVD is the disk with all the original drivers.

Have you tried plugging it into another computer with an external HDD enclosure? Then you can reformat it. If you can't reformat than the HDD might need to be replaced.

 

Wait a minute was the m11x supposed to have a resource disc included?

 

Who knows, mine never came with it. I just downloaded all the original drivers from the Dell site since mine came with two Win 7 discs, and no resourse disk

 

Since this happened after you moved the computer, maybe something got knocked loose? Try reseating all the removable bits (RAM, hdd, wifi cards, etc) and see if it'll start up.

 

I once supposed that it is caused by a loose RAM slot but I've run diagnostics and everything is ok for the RAM. I haven't open it up to check though.

 

Sorry for the late reply - I think you will still need the SATA drive for your SSD. Seeing it in BIOS is not the same as Windows being able to address it. You should download it onto a USB drive and have it ready.

Next run the Windows disk and when it boots up it should give you options to repair the HDD - However, I have never worked on a SSD so I do not know if your problem is fix able with the windows utilities.

 

I'm not sure what SATA driver should I download. Is it the 'Intel Matrix storage' or the 'Free Fall Sensor'? I think both of them are irrelevant to my issue??

I'm not able to find any 'repair HDD' option using my recovery DVD. The only option for me is to install fresh Windows

 

I say consider everything lost. Might be a tough cookie to swallow. Remove the SSD, install it on a working computer, either with an external HDD enclosure, or in a secondary HDD slot. Open up "disk management" by typing "disk management" into the start menu. Then you can do a quick format. Chances are you lost the boot drivers on the SSD. I did this a few days ago. Since you can't even boot to the SSD and the computer can not find the OS, the info is most likely gone.

 

Did you try running startup repair on the windows install disk?

Sounds like your MBR is messed up.

 

I have rang the Alienware support and they told me that they don't think there is any hardware issue and the only cause to the problem is data corruption.
They claim that reinstalling Windows is the only soultion to the problem.

I'm ok to reinstall Windows but I desperately want to know what really cause this problem. Telling from my judgement, I don't think there is a big chance of data corruption since I did not install any new software before a power off my system. However, I did moved my laptop away from the desk and unplugged all peripherials from it before my system is messed up. So, if this really is the cause of the problem, this would be a big problem to me.
This would mean that I'm not able to unplug the peripherials again. Even after I have reinstalled Windows, the problem is not solved! I need to find out and tackle the problem, not avoiding it.

 

Without physically looking at all the systems, its hard for me to determine the underlying cause of failure.

I find it hard to accept merely unplugging peripherals caused this issue. I do it all the time, even with Vista. I had a whole host of issues with Vista, but problems from unplugging stuff was never an issue for me.