System won't boot when mSATA Solid State Drive (SSD) Crashes or is Removed, Stops at the Intel Rapid Storage Technology - Option ROM Screen

This article contains information about systems fitted with mSATA drives that cannot boot past option ROM screen

Problem Observed

On systems where the mSATA Solid State Drive (SSD) has crashed or has been removed, the system will fail to boot, and stop at the Intel Rapid Storage Technology - Option ROM Screen (IRST)

This is an expected behavior because in RAID mode ISRT (Intel Smart Response Technology) needs both disks to exist.

Workaround/Solution:

1. Press Ctrl+I during the Option ROM screen to enter configuration utility

2. Then press R to remove the Disk/Volume Acceleration

3. Reboot system

4. The system can then boot to the Operating System (OS) successfully but will not support ISRT (Intel Smart Response Technology) feature

Create IFFS and ISRT partition to support both features again:

IFFS:

1. Power on the system and boot to the OS (Windows)

2. Click Start

3. In the search box, type diskpart right click on Diskpart and select Run as administrator

4. If the "User Account Control" message appears asking if you want to allow the program to make changes to your computer, click Yes

5. The Diskpart.exe command line utility should appear

6. Type the commands below into the Diskpart window

1. DISKPART> list disk

A list of available disks is shown

2. DISKPART> select disk X (X is disk number where you want to create the store partition)

3. DISKPART> create partition primary size = 8192

4. DISKPART> detail disk

5. DISKPART> select Volume X (X is the Volume number of your store partition)

6. set id=84 override (The id must be set to 84)

7. DISKPART> exit

7. Reboot the system into the BIOS setup menu, pressing F2 at the Dell logo

8. Set SATA Mode to "Intel Smart Response Technology"

9. Exit Saving Changes and boot to the OS

IRST (Intel Rapid Storage Technology)

1. Launch Intel Rapid Storage Technology from the Start menu

2. Click "Accelerate" item

3. Click "Enable acceleration"

4. Click "OK"

5. Re-start the system and the ISRT (Intel Smart Response Technology) should be enabled