How to Guide: Create Recovery CD's for the Alienware M17x -R-2

FIRST you need to click windows icon and then type in dell at the search bar at the bottom.

It should be the first one to come up " Dell DataSafe"





Now this screen will pop up. You need to click use basic




AFTER that you will need to click "Create Recovery Media"



AFTER that you will be met with this screen. Choose your form of back up and proceed. When you click next the program will make a set of disc for you.




Its that simple So easy a cave man could do it

 

Where do I find the software?

 

Have not found a down load location but just google it to find something. I am at work

 

K , I'll try googling ... Thanks

 

I take it this will give you the wallpapers etc, unlike the Win 7 DVD?

 

Yea this will make it just Luke you got it

 

After the disks are made do you just boot from the first one to restore on a new drive?

 

yes thats it

 

If the new drive is smaller than the one you created the image from, the restore won't work. The datasafe restore routine will tell you that your drive isn't big enough. This is likely the case if you go from HDD to SSD.

However, you can get around this: Image from your original big drive to a smaller drive using your favorite tool (Ghost, Acronis, WD tools, or whatever) shrinking the main data partition in the process. Then create a restore disc w/ datasafe local. You'll now be able to do a factory restore onto smaller drives in the future.

Something else that might work (but I haven't tried it) is to resize your data partition on the original big drive and make the backup disc. I would be curious if somebody succeeds, as it would be much easier to do (and could be done with a single drive.)

Note: If you blow away the factory image without making a backup disk, Datasafe Local is gone forever (and with it the ability to do a factory restore).

 

Also, if you didn't get Steam/portal pre-installed, the backup _should_ fit onto a single DVDR. My image was about 4.1GB. YMMV

 

Ill try to shrink the partition first...then I'll use a dvd-dl disk. this should work fine right?

Thank You
AwHw

 

I read the book and it says to use the F8 option on boot to repair the computer..If I'm starting with a fresh drive how would that work? Does Dell data safe make a boot disk out of the back up?

Thanks

 

Should work fine. If you didn't have any games preinstalled, you may be able to use a single layer DVD. My image was 4.12GB.

Yes, the DVD is bootable. You'll want to actually boot from the DVD, not the F8 option.

 

Thank You

Doing it now, I just booted up for the first time

 

Is it 4.12 GB before or after shrinking the hard drive partitions?

 

So I want to make these recovery disks. Exactly what would I need to do make it work? Would someone mind explaining how I go about doing this process? I have the Intel 160GB SSD and currently using my 250GB HHD that came in the system.

 

Yeah, I'm curious about exactly the same thing. How do you fool dell datasafe that the size of the original hdd is smaller than it is? I've read something about ghosting but don't know how it works exactly. Or if I use my original hdd as a secondary drive (keeping the factory recovery partition) and then make a clean install on the ssd, can I just access the factory partition that is on the secondary hdd from the primary ssd and run the recovery that way?

 

If there is a way to do a factory restore on my 128gb ssd drive please explain to me in detail how to do it. Thanks so much!!!