Cannot create factory restore discs with AlienRespawn

The M17x R3 that I own is only a few months old. I haven't really used it much as I should have, especially in the last two months. Now that I think(hopefully?) that I will now finally get some time to spend on it. I have now decided to create some back discs using AlienRespawn, but I now cannot!

When I open AlienRespawn it displays a message: AlienRespawn has not been able to detect the Recovery Partition on this computer. It may be missing or corrupted.

If click on backup, the option Create Recovery Media is available, and states that it is recommened. I can then click on Create System Recovery Media. I get two options, either with Discs or USB Flash Drive, but both of these are greyed out and cannot be selected!

If I click on the restore button, the title "Restore your entire system to a previous date or the factory state" this is also greyed out and not selectable.

I ended up calling Dell to try and resolve the issue, yet the two people I had (one of which didn't bother getting back to me) and the other rep today suggested that there is nothing they can do about it and suggested that I should re-install windows and download all the drivers instead. I tried to tell them that is not acceptable and I shouldn't have to go through so much trouble. He then went on saying it would of been sent to me from the factory with a bad image (I told him that is not my problem), and then he went on to say that I have a virus (without seeing or knowing) and would of caused the factory restore feature not to work at all.

At this stage I cannot do a factory restore or create any recovery media. May be not a big deal for some, but I like to create factory restore discs, and if my operating system stop working for whatever reason, just simply pressing a button or put in some restore discs, this makes light work and is easy to do.

I know the partition is still there, I can see it under disc management. Does anyone know of any other ways that I can get this to work? Dell has no clue, and neither of the Dell reps would esculate my case even after two phone calls. This is some bad support service, for an important feature that should be working right out of the box.

 

could one of you programs be causing a conflict? can you run the program in safe mode?

 

Good idea, but it did not work, same problem as described above.

Far as I know I should be able to press one of the function key just after POST, but none of the F1-F12 keys worked either.