accidentally enabled raid on single windows drive, now no boot

[ThePiston]

I flashed to a new bios, but forgot which set of headers my raid setup was on. When I got my new bios up I accidentally chose the wrong 2 sata headers as my raid ones (but I didn't create a raid array or anything, just enabled them). After it found no bootable device I switched it back to the correct headers thinking all would be good.

Now Win7 starts to boot but it takes me to the repair page. When I click repair (vs start normally) it loads repair files then reboots - no repair. If I choose "start windows normally" it takes me back to the repair page again in a never-ending cycle. I'll try the installation disk to see if it has better repair.

Any ideas?

**edit**
Win7 repair on installation disc did the same thing - that's one hell of a repair utility

 

[ThePiston]

so no one has any idea how to get windows to boot properly again? I didn't think just enabling raid would change the boot sector. Win7 startup repair is supposed to be able to fix MBR issues.

 

[adlep]

Can't you start by accessing the RAID utility in the bios and the selecting an option to rebuild/fix the array?

I know that this is an option in Adaptec/Dell RAID card utilities. Also, what kind of a RIAD level we are talking about? RAID 0 may be difficult to fix.

Last but not least, borrow another computer, download, and burn USBCD4Win so that you can at least try to boot your computer off the CD and see if your data are still there...
Good luck.

 

[csc]

I am kind of confused is it onboard? What is your setup exactly?

If you enabled raid on the drive then you have to set back to normal in the raid bios, either way I dont think you can get the info back.

If you didnt create the raid then the drive should be normal. In that case something else happened to the os drive and the bios update is probably the culprat.

 

[vailr]

You could opt to: leave the raid setting in the bios. Then boot from the Windows install disc and hit F6 to provide the Raid/AHCI drivers from a floppy disc or a USB flash drive. Continue on to repair (or re-install) Windows. Single HD's will work fine when the controller is configured for Raid.

 

[ThePiston]

The error was that Windows was loading the repair files onto the failed array that was set to be rebuilt. Hence it could not work correctly. One in a million... Once I finally figured this out through the help of my 15th forum read online, I disabled the raid drives (removed power) and then rebooted. It's finally starting to repair my install. woohoo