The Boot Sequence page displays a general list of the bootable devices that may be installed in your computer, including but not limited to the following:

Modular bay HDD

Internal HDD

CD/DVD/CD-RW drive

During the boot routine, the computer starts at the top of the list and scans each enabled device for the operating system start-up files. When the computer

finds the files, it stops searching and starts the operating system.

To control the boot devices, select (highlight) a device by pressing the down-arrow or up-arrow key, and then enable or disable the device or change its order

in the list.

To enable or disable a device, highlight the item and press the space bar. Enabled items appear as white and display a small triangle to the left;

disabled items appear blue or dimmed without a triangle.

To reorder a device in the list, highlight the device and then press <u> or <d> (not case-sensitive) to move the highlighted device up or down.

Boot sequence changes take effect as soon as you save the changes and exit system setup.

Performing a One-Time Boot

You can set a one-time-only boot sequence without entering system setup. (You can also use this procedure to boot the Dell Diagnostics on the diagnostics

utility partition on your hard drive.)

1. Shut down the computer through the Start menu.

2. Connect the computer to an electrical outlet.

3. Turn on the computer. When the DELL logo appears, press <F12> immediately.

NOTE:

The keyboard must be awake to recognize the keystroke. Ensure the keyboard is awake by touching the touchpad.

If you wait too long and the Windows logo appears, continue to wait until you see the Windows desktop. Then shut down your computer and try again.

4. When the boot device list appears, highlight the device from which you want to boot and press <Enter>.

The computer boots to the selected device.

The next time you reboot the computer, the previous boot order is restored.

About Your RAID Configuration

This section provides an overview of the RAID configuration that you might have selected when you purchased your computer. Although several RAID

configurations are available, Dell offers either a RAID level 0 configuration or a RAID level 1 configuration for the Dell™ XPS™ M2010 computer. A RAID level 0

configuration is recommended for high-performance computing and gaming, and a RAID level 1 configuration is recommended for the data integrity

requirements of digital photography and audio.

The Intel® RAID controller on your computer can only create a RAID level 0 configuration using two physical drives.

NOTE:

RAID levels do not represent a hierarchy. A RAID level 1 configuration is not inherently better or worse than a RAID level 0 configuration.

RAID Level 0 Configuration

A RAID level 0 configuration uses a storage technique known as "data striping" to provide a high data access rate. Data striping is a method of writing

consecutive segments, or stripes, of data sequentially across the physical drives to create a large virtual drive. Data striping allows one of the drives to read

data while the other drive is searching for and reading the next block.

Performing a One-Time

Boot.

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