When I receive My Alienware in a week should I wiped the harddrive?

I am fairly a novice when it comes to laptops, I know more than the average person, but I am no expert, Should I wipe my hard drive, will it make my M14x faster? or should I leave it on factory settings? What is the benefits and how many drivers and applications would I have to re-instal if I do a complete wipe? thanks!!

 

My m14x worked great out of the box! Even without installing any new drivers I had no issues at all. I honestly don't think doing a clean windows install will make your m14x faster. Alienware installs almost no bloatware. Maybe you could use this optimization guide. This helped me make my m11x faster and keep it fast.

However I changed my hdd for a ssd, which does make the machine a lot faster and had to do a full install. This took me a 1-2 hours.

If you are going to do a clean install you should use the Resources DVD which comes with the m14x to install drivers. Use this guide for installation order of the drivers and download order of other stuff. After that, update your drivers if necessary from the Dell drivers website. You could also update your Nvidia driver from the Nvidia website, but I haven't done this so far.

 

Thanks, repped

 

Sure, but don't forget to flush twice.

 

A smart thing to do would be to make a backup/image of your drive for restore purposes. As I know sometimes people accidentally end up deleting their restore partition (guy I bought my laptop from did that).

 

I agree with khetik. Back it up good then wipe and start over. Whenever I get a new computer, before even powering it up the first time, I boot from CD and use clonezilla to make a backup image from the manufacturer. It's just good practice, and then I can restore that backup whenever I want to sell or just send into Dell or wherever. It's just a good idea. I also keep regular clonezilla images of my entire disk every 6 months or so... just in case. =)

 

Bump previous few,Makes it easy when you want that new windows feel and you dont lose the alienware feel when you back up.

 

Try it first.

Mine also worked fantastic out of the box. I love it! If it was legal to marry it I would, and make little M11x by the dozen. But Alas, I don't live in Japan.

Seriously, all I needed was to update the GFx driver. Also, most complaints I hear about are from those who wiped it, changed it or overclocked it (seriously how many heat-complainers are overclocking!).

If it works great (and it should with the price we paid!), why wipe it?

 

It is not necessary though, because since Alienware dont install those pesky useless junk software on the laptop, not as much as other manufacturer (e.g ASUS), beside before you do that be sure that you preserve the AlienRespawn so then you can revert back whenever you want to feel to, the "How to" can be found through this link here > HOW TO: Preserve AlienRespawn - stock drive to aftermarket drive / AlienRespawn Q&A. The AlienRespawn if you didnt know what it is, it is like a factory image program that allow you to burn a copy (or more) into a DVD for preservation and for future use like in case of a system crash etc...

And this link is for the "How to" of HOW TO: Restore the Alienware 'Look and Feel' after a clean install of Windows 7, as link title said, it is for when after you fresh/clean install the Windows and wanting to go back to want it look like when you receive the laptop.

For the driver installation, in fact if you didnt do the fresh/clean install it will be all pre-install on your laptop, and like many other said, it will work out of the box, and for if you do the clean install, you will have to do the driver installation Everytime you do it, because the Alienware Windows DVD will not install all those drivers for you because it is just a plain Windows DVD with some mod into it like you dont have to enter the Product Key as it will skip that and have entered it for you.

And for application, you will miss those, because when you bought the laptop they only give you the M14x's driver DVD, and the Windows 7 DVD. Applications like Roxio Starter, McAfee Antivirus, Dell Integrated Webcam (LIVE! Central), MS Office Starter (this one is exception because if you bought the full version they'll give you the MS Office DVD as well), and the AlienRespawn (this one is also exceptional because it is tied to the Recovery Drive, if you delete that drive, then installing the AlienRespawn will be useless as you will only receive an error message saying that it cannot find a compatible Dell Original Factory Image Drive which is the Recovery Drive). However the first 3 application you can get it back through the "My Dell Download" by registering your laptop by follow this link > My Dell Download, although with this, it say it only support IE in order to register, for me it didnt work until I revert back to IE8, and try again. Note: Once you registered you can only make a 5 or less re-download on each application it is because of the stupid DRM protection, so I recommend you to make a backup like burn each app into a DVD or something like that.

 

This guide isn't necessary with the alienware windows install CD. You will get the alienware look and feel automaticly when installing windows.

 

i am wondering if i upgrade my OS to professional will it erase the AW look and feel aswell?

 

Nah, mate, I've tried it, like I said the Alienware Windows 7 DVD will not restore the look and feel, it is just a plain DVD with some mod inside it. I knew this through my last 2 clean install (first when I first receive the laptop and second with a Dell technician with he replace my failed HDD). Or it is just my Windows installation Disc, Because I order the Professional version, not sure if the Home Premium or the Ultimate would including the look and feel after the installation or not, but I dont think it would.

 

I ordered a pre-built m14x and the only bloatware I had to uninstall/delete was the Steam installer, since I don't use Steam. Pretty clean install of Windows fresh out of the box imo.

 

no matter what version you install, it will completley delete all alienware modification done by dell at factory. but relax, here is a solution. after a fresh install, just do this:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ook-feel-after-clean-install-windows-7-a.html

 

That what I've trying to argue with Vortexblade. See my original post for truth

 

oops... :3