M1730 faulty or not - Help appreciated

[Pulsedriver]

Hey folks, this does go on a bit but would appreciate any input if you can spare the time.

I bought a Dell M1730 laptop - from a store that refurbishes them.

Spec;

2.6 ghz / 4GB / 200GB HD / Dual 8700M / Vista Ultimate / BluRay drive etc

Anyway, the condition was fantastic, couple of niggly things such as the keyboard illumination didn't work... So I took the front off and fixed it (they hadnt connected the ribbon!)
The LED on the front left grill kept flickering, and the blu-ray drive didn't read any cd's/dvd's let alone blu rays!
I wanted to set up a RAID0 array (dell ship them like that on higher spec ones) so bought 2 x 320GB WD drives.

I noticed, they had connected the 200gb drive to SATA1 instead of SATA0 on the cable... I tried changing it to SATA0 and it didn't work properly.

So when I set up the RAID0 array, it failed after an hour or so.

They agreed to take it back, fix the led, the blu ray drive replaced, and replace the 'sata cable' which they said was faulty.

It arrived back, led fixed, drive fixed, but HD connected to SATA1, I thought after that, they would connect it to SATA0 to prove the point it was fixed... But anyway...
The cables on these are one ribbon cable connected to the board, which has 2 ends, one saying SATA0 one saying SATA1 so it is not possible to change just one cable, the cable is for them both.

Last night I put the 2 x 320gb drives in, created an array, installed vista, it got to 'completing installation' then when it rebooted, it just hangs at the part where the RAID array is displayed (pretty much the POST screen).

That was last night, this morning I turned it on and saw on the RAID array part;

Total size 596.2GB - Status Normal Bootable Yes

Port 0 298.1GB Error occured(0)

Port 2 298.1GB Member disk(0)


I know the disks are OK(had checked them individually), and I have tried several different installation methods (AHCI, RAID) etc including using the chipset drivers during the install.

To me, it seems the RAID controller is faulty, or the hard drive 0 controller is faulty.
This would explain the refurbishment, as I bet Dell would replace a customers laptop if that had that fault, and sell it to a 3rd party refurb place to fix - or sell in the hope the person would not use the RAID controller....

I paid nearly £1000 for this, so it's not pocket change, and whilst people can say why don't I just use 1 drive, why should I? When paying that much money - it was advertised as fully working.

I guess the moral is - always buy new!

But before I go back to the shop - are you in agreement that it would appear to be a controller issue - ie board fault...?

 

[Hugest_UK]

Hi,

I had the error on my M1730 and it was a faulty drive (2x200gb in RAID 0). The drive booted and appeared to work fine but maybe once or twice in the 6 months I have had it it errored in windows and on reboot had the error on the RAID bios screen. I could clear the error and it would be ok for a few months before repeating. I had both drives replaced under warranty and the problem went away.

So even though it does seem to be the controller this is what I suggest put the drive you know works ok (the one that didnt error on the RAID) onto the suspected faulty SATA0 and try and install vista from scratch onto that single drive if you still have problems then its 99% a cable /controller /motherboard fault. Then go back to place you purchased and get a full refund its already been bodge repaired once.

Cheers,
Hugest

 

[Pulsedriver]

I've swapped the drives over mate same problem

I've now put the drive that was on RAID0 into another laptop and installed windows perfectly onto it.

Back to the shop it goes