I need help with my Alien ware M17XR4 pc note book please

I just recently had to do a fresh install of windows 7 home premium .After the fresh install i noticed that the C drive on my note book is only displaying 19.2 GB free of 59.4 GB .Where as the main hard disk is 500 GB and i cant seem to make the C drive display the proper free disk space from the total disk space. Could some any one please guide me with a step by step guide on how to configure this problem please ?.

 

looks like you messed up the install.

Did you format the drive incorrectly ? go to device manager and then disk management and see if you have any unallocated disk space on C:/

 

i had this problem when i received my SSD, if it's like me, download acronis true home image and there, reset your HDD and you will have back your 500gb

 

Well as i checked in device manager .Under the tab i.e Disk drives i see volume0 displayed .No clue what it is ? .Any thing else you could guide to resolve this problem ?

 

@DARCODER ,what is acronis true home image ?

 

All i see is Voule0 under tab of Disk drives in device manager .Im confused.

 

it's a software to clone, reset, copy HDD, SSD
if you download this software, after installation, go to utilities, disk manager and click create a new disk and after selected your HDD ( it will erase everything!!) choose initiate GUID (GPT) and accept everything and you will recover back your full HDD.

 

well, download this software in another computer or put another HDD to be able to erase your hard drive because you will lose even you OS.
If you follow amitvig22, if you see an unallocated disk space, ( i think it should be grey and you will see like 400gb inside) just erase it and reset it to allocate it

 

@Darcoder where can i find utilities ,disk manager etc to create a new disk on windows 7 home premium ?

 

@DARCODER i think my problem is not an unallocated disk space .But the problem is that the main hard disk is kind of disabled and wont show under C drive .I think it has something to do with configuring or installation of drivers may be regarding the Raid controller .If you have some idea what im talking about as i mention this and a possible solution to it ?

 

You mean with the software ( acronis)==> download it
or windows? if windows, just writte in search bar: create and format hard disk

I don't think it's a driver problem. Send me a pic of Disk managment, so i can see faster and a solution maybe.

 

@DARCODER i sent a snap shot of the Disk management window in the next reply down below.

 

@DARCODER ok got it! heres a snap shot of the Disk management window

 

Do it with acronis in another laptop, you need to kinda format your HDD and reinstal your OS, thats what i did. if you play on acronis a bit, maybe you can create the partition missing but i doubt, (im not a pro for HDD, i know just some basics...)
i think reformat is a good solution as you already did it ACRONis will resotre full HDD, a basic format will just restore your 59!

 

Did your machine come with an msata cache? Looks to me like you might have used that drive for the install? 60gb is a common size for one of these, if not then its some weird partitioning problem mentioned above.

 

Exactly what I was going to say. Micky you and I always try and come up with the most logical solutions XD.

 

Haha, I've lost count of the amount of times we tag-team a problem.

Something else for the OP to check. If it's just a partitioning issue then use windows Disk Manager to see them. If you see a bunch of unallocated space you can dynamically add it to the existing partition (right click on target, select 'Extend'). Take care though and grab pics to ask questions if you're unsure - you can end up trashing your windows installation at the next restart if you make a mistake .

 

Also let us try this, press the start button > type in: computer management in the search box > Click the program that comes up > Inside the program click storage link > then disk management > wait a few seconds > take a screen shot of what you see.

 

That's the route

I was intrigued by your drive parameters. The 'Recovery partition show as 'System and 'Active'. This must get read at some point and would answer why some people get 'missing operating system' when they selectively restore image partitions?

I do know that my Data drive had this designation. I swapped it over to the boot drive - goodnight windows startup . Three runs through windows repair off the CD figured it out, and moved the bootloader (I think).

Maybe dell want the recovery partition to be the first available for a restore boot?

 

You are right on the money the recovery drive serves as a boot drive how dell has it set up. Also if you mess with it it takes 3 system repairs with the windows disk and you are all set. To get the boot files to be added properly. Honestly at this point recovery is messed up on my machine and I've been to lazy to diagnose why. The F8 recovery menu doesn't work lol.

 

Thanks.

Haha, don't beat youself up man. I went weeks where I could only get my machine to start via F8!

Never buy a car off a mechanic or a computer from an enthusiast

 

Windows 7, "Repair your computer" F8 boot option not working (SOLVED) | Acronis Community

Well Mickey my OCD has started ... It must be fixed. Check out the latest post by me Brant Parrish lol.

 

@Hackintoshihope Heres the snap shot from my pc regarding the Disk management display window

 

Hello every one i just logged in late to see some activity on this thread .The problem that i have no clue as to how to resolve it , is that the C drive in my computer is only showing the 60 GB hard drive information .This drive is a Bootable drive .Before this occured my C drive always displayed the primary Hard drive information from my 500GB Physical Devices .Such as the complete disk space free from the total disk space used up on the primary physical device HDD .But this all changed after Re-installing Windows 7 home premium and after a formatting of the C drive .Now i need guidance as how to undo the above mentioned problem i see .That is my operating system being installed on this 60 GB Bootable drive instead on the Primary 500 GB HDD physical device .Can any one give a good solid solution please?

 

The solution i provide you before, a bit long, is a solution.

 

I haven't read back at Darcoder's advice (sry) but it looks like your original HDD has a serious problem since you can't see it in disk manager.

Your confusion is because (I believe) the machine was setup with an SSD cache drive. When these are active you do not see them at all except in disk manager, so you only see a c drive of 500gb.

Something went awry during your install and you restored your partitions to the cache drive.

Did you make any bios changes?

To recover this the first thing is to get your HDD working. Go into the bios and look at the drives it sees. If it is there then you should be able to go through your full restore again but this time select the 500gb drive.

It might even be some weird problem with the firmware that controls caching (RAID bios). A screen should pop up before the bios screen listing the drives and their config. Do you get this and what does it say? There is a hot-key on screen to access it as well.

In order to get caching working again later you will need to wipe the SSD in disk manager but do not do this while windows says it is the primary active one. This can be sorted out after getting the HDD boot working.

It's not going to be a simple fix, that's for sure

 

@MickyD1234 where in the BIOS does it see which drives are there ? .In other words when i go into Bios .Which option do i high light and Press Enter on?

 

Just as Mickey was saying you have installed the os on a cache or other small ssd drive. It's time now to start testing your 500gb hard drive in another computer. Because let me tell you it's not working in yours :\.

 

sorry, I can't remember, it's been ages since I went in there! I can't restart right now but I'll have a look later tonight if you cant find it. You should see the SSD listed along with the HDD. Just click in and 'escape' out as you look around. If you accidentally change something you have the keypress at the bottom of the screen to default all the settings.

You could also run the windows install from boot again, the disk config screen should offer you both drives. It's a bit weird since as long as you don't change anything the cache drive remains invisible even during an install. Does a text screen pop up before the bios screen showing the drive config an to press Ctrl-A to configure?

 

ok resolved the problem guess what i did ...i just formatted the 60 GB Sata cache drive and made it disappear and during re-installation of windows 7 home premium SP1 64 bit .When it asked me where to install windows i selected the 465 GB hard drive.Which is in fact the C drive now .It was painful to go through the process of re-installing and formating the previous partition on which the OS was installed on .So cache Sata drive gone and 465 GB hard disk drive visible and accessible now.

 

Cool. Now I guess you need to turn on the caching?

Instructions and info here (ignore all the BIOS stuff, it already done by dell): Chipset Software — Intel® Smart Response Technology User Guide

 

ok i enabled the 30 GB sata cache drive acceleration through the Intel Rapid store technology system icon .Am i fine to go ?

 

OK now heres another issue im facing after all that previously .I am having a hard time updating my stuff on windows and installing applications i missed .Now after installing ALien command center .I cant get the color of the lights changed on the note book through that .When i want to change a color and then select the color to effect .Nothing happens after clicking on apply through the alien command center. Can anyone please help me out with this one please ?

 

You are! Did you select 30gb as the size of cache - I thought you had a 64gb msata drive? You can decide that you want some SSD left to format and create a new drive letter (in disk manager) but probably easiest to just use it all.

Your windows should now load much faster?

No idea on the AlienFX thing except removing it through add/remove programs and try the install again. make sure you are using the version for your model.

Good Luck

 

The cache can only be set to a custom size of 59.4 something. That 5 gigs is lost in the format of the drive, when using a 64gb cache drive. Honestly that's why dell upped it to 80gb in their Alienware 17's so you could configure it " up to " 64gigs, which is the maximum, while having the 10 gigs as storage as I showed previously. That's just what I figured out and I think it's true.

 

Thanks for that. Now I understand why they did a cache drive nominally larger than the max. . Makes perfect sense.

My question was because the OP said 30gb? Maybe just a typo?

 

There is an auto configure link for 30 or 64 if I recall, then a "custom" link for making it the 59 some odd gigs. But I'm on my mac right now and could not confirm. What I mean by this is he probably just didn't configure it right. - (meaning he auto configured for the 30gigs) But in effect that was the problem to begin with hehe, not configuring things right haha.

 

Haha, yup that was what I was thinking - should be possible to go back in and reconfigure it though?

 

Yep changed at any time! It's a quick and simple fix.

 

Check to see if you still have a copy of the old windows folder still loaded on your drives: follow instructions below.

Click the Start button Picture of the Start button , and then click Computer.
Double-click the drive that Windows is installed on (typically, the C: drive).

Double-click the Windows.old folder.

***That folder alone carries several Gigs of data that you might want to delete if not needed.

 

The problem he had has been fixed he installed on an ssd drive that is 60gigs. This is not the solution.

 

Just as a reference to be sure if everything went just fine.Do let me know though if in case i am still missing out on something .But heres an image of what the disk manager looks like now on my pc.

 

Looks good you just need to change the cache drive to the full 60 gigs not the 30 you have it set up for.

 

@Hackintoshihope -Any recap on how to do that would help please.

 

Ok after a restart i was able to get the the lights up display colors changed through the Alien command center .How ever theres another un expected problem im facing with my note book in built keyboard buttons that are located on the top of the main in built keyboard .When i push the sound volume or the eject buttons .They do work but i dont see the functional digital display on screen for these buttons .Might there be a way to fix this one ?

 

If you look in the IRST guide ( Chipset Software — Intel® Smart Response Technology User Guide) you will see the screen where you select 'full disk capacity'' (64kb).

Did you install this: Driver Details | Dell UK ?

 

@MickyD1234 ---This is what the windows of the Intel Smart Response Technology IRST looks lik eon my pc .I see the acceleration tab missing in it .Is there something wrong with it ?.If so how can it be configured ?

 

I think it only shows when it see an empty SSD that can be used for acceleration, like the first time you used it? Try highlighting the RAID volume and click on 'configure'. Post a pic of that screen

 

Ok heres an update .I think the size allocated for Cache memory is already selected at full Disk capacity upto 64 GB .All i did was click on \OK in the window screen attached here from the IRST icon on my pc .Is it all good?.Any thing being missed out here ? .Please let me know if in case

 

Almost missed this one! No notification!

That looks good, just go to the 'status' screen now and see what that shows?