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Alienware Aurora R7 no boot 8 Aug 2025

Celebrating its 7th anniversary, the Aurora R7 stopped booting,
reporting bad C: drive.
Sorting which drive is/was actually C: was not trivial.
CrystalDiskInfo is insufficient for monitoring drive and data health.

Dell desktop community

F2 for BIOS boot

service manual

USB-Aconnection
1Quad-Capture
2display
cat5Redubo switch
3Roland MIDI
4lightning
5keyboard
6empty
USB-Cempty
7microscope
tp-link hub

4 hard drives, including one unpowered

CrystalDiskInfo requires Function > Rescan to see new drive
  • Samsung 2.5 SATA SSD 860 EVO 1TB

    chkdsk found no problem
    ls -lt 
    total 12
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None 0 Oct  6 09:33 'System Volume Information'
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None 0 Aug 22 11:02  my
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None 0 Aug 22 09:19  MapData
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None 0 Apr 19  2024  WindowsApps
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None 0 Apr 19  2024  WUDownloadCache
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None 0 Jan 15  2022  bleke
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None 0 May 17  2021 '$RECYCLE.BIN'
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None 0 Jan 25  2020  WpSystem
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None 0 Sep  5  2019 'Program Files'
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None 0 Oct  6  2018  EPSON
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None 0 Jun  8  2018  DeliveryOptimization
  • WDC WD10EZEX-75WN4A0 : 1000.2 GB

    power was unplugged;  chkdsk found no problem
    ls -lt 
    total 906028
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None         0 Oct  9 10:11 '$RECYCLE.BIN'
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None         0 Feb  2  2021  Backupper
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None         0 Aug 22 10:26  Config.Msi
-rw-r--r-- 1 bleke None 926120918 Jul  8  2024  Ender-3V3SE.zip
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None         0 Oct 26  2018  GitHub
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None         0 Dec  3  2021  JS
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None         0 Aug 22 10:26  NodeJS
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None         0 Sep  5  2019 'Program Files'
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None         0 May 31  2018  Recovery
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None         0 Apr 12  2022  Ruby27-x64
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None         0 Oct  6 09:33 'System Volume Information'
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None         0 Apr 19  2024  WUDownloadCache
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None         0 Apr 19  2024  WindowsApps
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None         0 Jun  1  2018  WpSystem
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None         0 Aug 22 11:05  backup
-rw-r--r-- 1 bleke None   1618693 Jul  8  2024  microSDHC.7z
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None         0 Feb 19  2023  msys64
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None         0 Jun  9  2023  my
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None         0 Aug 22 10:55  packages
  • NVMe drive (probably C:)
    ls -l 
    total 2506881
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None          0 Jan 25  2020 '$Recycle.Bin'
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None          0 Feb 19  2022 '$WINDOWS.~BT'
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None          0 Jul 10  2024 '$WinREAgent'
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None          0 Jun 10  2023 '$Windows.~WS'
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None          0 May 25  2018  Apps
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None          0 Mar 29  2021  Dell
lrwxrwxrwx 1 bleke None          8 May 31  2018 'Documents and Settings' -> /c/Users
-rw-r--r-- 1 bleke None       8192 Aug 26  2023  DumpStack.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 bleke None       8192 Oct  6 12:37  DumpStack.log.tmp
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None          0 Jun 10  2023  ESD
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None          0 Oct  6 12:37  Intel
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None          0 Dec  7  2019  PerfLogs
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None          0 Jul  8  2024 'Program Files'
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None          0 Oct  6 09:36 'Program Files (x86)'
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None          0 Jul  8  2024  ProgramData
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None          0 Jul 15  2023  Recovery
-rw-r--r-- 1 bleke None       1024 Jun 11  2023  SYSTAG.BIN
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None          0 Oct 23  2023 'System Repair'
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None          0 Oct  6 09:42 'System Volume Information'
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None          0 May 17  2021  Users
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None          0 Dec 31  2018  WCH.CN
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None          0 Aug 22 09:37  Windows
-rw-r--r-- 1 bleke None        354 Mar  5  2022  am_pe_log.txt
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None          0 Aug 21 18:43  inetpub
-r--r--r-- 1 bleke None      24983 May 25  2018  mfg.sdr
-rw-r--r-- 1 bleke None 2550136832 Oct  6 12:37  pagefile.sys
-rw-r--r-- 1 bleke None   16777216 Oct  6 12:37  swapfile.sys
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None          0 Feb 22  2022  temp
    While CrystalDiskInfo reported Good health (but note Media and Data Integrity Errors),
      chkdsk found plenty wrong.
    details 
     Volume in drive J is OS
 Volume Serial Number is 70F2-F259

               1 File(s)            354 bytes
              13 Dir(s)  103,660,883,968 bytes free

C:\Windows\System32>chkdsk J:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
The shadow copy provider had an error. Check the System and Application event logs for more information.

Volume label is OS.

WARNING!  /F parameter not specified.
Running CHKDSK in read-only mode.

Stage 1: Examining basic file system structure ...
Deleted corrupt attribute list entry
with type code A0 in file 9.
Attribute record (A0, $SII) from file record segment 9
is corrupt.
Attribute record (80, "") from file record segment 14B
is corrupt.
Attribute record (80, "") from file record segment 680A
is corrupt.
Attribute record (80, "") from file record segment 9BFF
is corrupt.
Attribute record (80, "") from file record segment E71D
is corrupt.
Attribute record (80, "") from file record segment 17436
is corrupt.
Deleted corrupt attribute list entry
with type code 80 in file 45435.
Attribute record (80, "") from file record segment 6326
is corrupt.
  1173504 file records processed.
File verification completed.
 Phase duration (File record verification): 5.88 seconds.
File record segment 6326 is an orphan.
  12986 large file records processed.
 Phase duration (Orphan file record recovery): 4.68 milliseconds.

Errors found.  CHKDSK cannot continue in read-only mode.

    Since Antec was using nothing on that drive, exited CrystalDiskInfo and ran chkdsk /x /r
    ... which eventually hung:
    Stage 5: Looking for bad, free clusters ...
Progress: 1796293 of 25333346 done; Stage:  7%; Total: 60%; ETA:   0:07:29
  • 1TB NVMe on PCIe card

    chkdsk found no problems
    ls -lt
    total 3273
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None       0 Oct 10 08:00 '$RECYCLE.BIN'
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None       0 Oct  6 09:33 'System Volume Information'
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None       0 Aug 21 19:07  VSCode
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None       0 Jun  6  2021  VScommunity
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None       0 Jun  6  2021  c903786baaf790151540
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None       0 Jun  6  2021  cdb6fe5fe2011f678dbbce8adc7a
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None       0 Feb 14  2020 'Windows Kits'
drwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None       0 Feb 14  2020  VS
-rw-r--r-- 1 bleke None  232960 Dec 16  2019  VC_RED.MSI
-rw-r--r-- 1 bleke None 1442522 Dec 16  2019  VC_RED.cab
-rw-r--r-- 1 bleke None   17734 Dec 16  2019  eula.1028.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 bleke None   17734 Dec 16  2019  eula.1031.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 bleke None   10134 Dec 16  2019  eula.1033.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 bleke None   17734 Dec 16  2019  eula.1036.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 bleke None   17734 Dec 16  2019  eula.1040.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 bleke None     118 Dec 16  2019  eula.1041.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 bleke None   17734 Dec 16  2019  eula.1042.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 bleke None   17734 Dec 16  2019  eula.2052.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 bleke None   17734 Dec 16  2019  eula.3082.txt
-rwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None   93200 Apr 11  2008  install.res.1049.dll
-rw-r--r-- 1 bleke None   10134 Apr 11  2008  eula.1049.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 bleke None    1110 Apr 11  2008  globdata.ini
-rw-r--r-- 1 bleke None     843 Apr 11  2008  install.ini
-rw-r--r-- 1 bleke None    5686 Apr 11  2008  vcredist.bmp
-rwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None  562688 Apr 11  2008  install.exe
-rwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None   76304 Apr 11  2008  install.res.1028.dll
-rwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None   96272 Apr 11  2008  install.res.1031.dll
-rwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None   91152 Apr 11  2008  install.res.1033.dll
-rwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None   97296 Apr 11  2008  install.res.1036.dll
-rwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None   95248 Apr 11  2008  install.res.1040.dll
-rwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None   81424 Apr 11  2008  install.res.1041.dll
-rwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None   79888 Apr 11  2008  install.res.1042.dll
-rwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None   75792 Apr 11  2008  install.res.2052.dll
-rwxr-xr-x 1 bleke None   96272 Apr 11  2008  install.res.3082.dll
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