Is "Respawn" an old feature? - new system preloaded with it

Hi guys.

Quick question. Pretty simple.

Just got a new system in lieu of my old one.....the old one had dell datasafe local backup preinstalled so naturally, i thought the new system would have the same....it didnt.

Instead, it came preloaded with the "respawn" feature....

My question being, was one phased out in favour of the other? ... is one newer or better than the other??

Just trying to understand why the difference....was only a few weeks between builds....

Any advice/info much appreciated.

 

Hi Stevie

Yes respawn is older and phased out. Not sure when they phased it out. You have an interesting situation there and look foreward to learning more.

http://support.dell.com/support/top...64D910AF583F17E040AE0AB7E13B3B&doclang=en&cs=

 

If it makes you feel any better both my Aliens came with Respawn. The M11X came July 29th and the M17X landed the 30th. However, one of them has datasafe as well.

 

Here is a thread the covered it in some detail, posts 3&4:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/506313-alienrespawn-vs-windows-7-backup.html

 

Ahhhh....after reading that posted thread, i can tell you guys that what i have on the new system is the rebranded version of datasafe....yes its called Respawn in the task tray icon but it gives the same result as depicted in the image posted before.

One thing tho, after looking at Falcon's link, i see that respawn has branded dvd's where as i got the standard os/resource disk.

I guess maybe Dell "respawned" datasafe with a different UI as it is basically the same as the UI i had with datasafe on my original system.

Couldnt understand why i couldnt find datasafe on my newer system but its obviously just been re-hashed again and this time renamed as respawn.

My primary concern was that my replacement (installed with respawn) was somewhat older than AW were making out - i was told it is a brand new replacement but this got me thinking that if respawn HAD have been phased out, then it SHOULDNT be on my NEW system.

Looks like a call to Dell to clarify - although sometimes they are as much use as a chocolate fireguard

 

"My primary concern was that my replacement (installed with respawn) was somewhat older than AW were making out - i was told it is a brand new replacement but this got me thinking that if respawn HAD have been phased out, then it SHOULDNT be on my NEW system."

Hi Stevie, this is what I was afraid of for you. Respawn would have a disk that says "respawn" on the disk. If you have Datasafe you could find that by showing all the icons in the tastbar. The datasafe icond is a grey circle with a pie section colored green. You can also find datasafe by searching datasafe on your computer.

There is nothing wrong with Respawn, personally I would much rather have had it than Datasafe.

One thing I am confused about is why you reinstalled your operating system? Did you add a driver yourself? The respawn would have put you back to factory fresh condition if it really works.

 

Hi Stevie,

I just looked at Gadgetboi's link and it looks like Dell has rebranded a new Alien Respawn sometime recently. Looks like you are fine. Your instruction manual should have a detailed explanation of how to use this feature.

 

Hiya,

Did a reinstall on my original as kept crashing and someone said to try it....kept getting messages with "no operating system found" so i thought i would give that a whirl to see if it fixed it.

The new system totally does NOT have datasafe (tried searching) it just has respawn but the disks that shipped with it are NOT branded respawn....just OS disc and resource disc.

On top of that....my new system which i havent done A THING to is giving me grief....

Keep getting messages saying "display driver stopped working" and another problem is that when its plugged in to charge (laptop off) the alienhead on the lid does not light up at all (had a slow glow on my original whilst charging)

It also does not iluminate when i turn it on until it gets to the desktop....no hdd activity on the on/off button or on the reverse of the lid.

This is beginning to TOTALLY do my head in......2nd "crap" system i have had...

 

Hi Stevie,

I would try the respawn feature. If that doesn't work than send it back. If you open Alien FX it will tell you what color the logo should be. Maybe the settings are turned off.

The problem with reinstalling is that the average user will miss some drivers and add wrong ones to the mix. Some of the drivers listed are patches while others are full ones and others may not be listed and this is what makes a reinstall so complicated. Dell really needs to clean up the driver site as it is way too complicated. If it were easy than there wouldn't be so many threads about problems reinstalling operating system. Also you need to make sure you do the order correctly.

The respawn is suppose to take all the headache out of it. They probably brought it back do to the number of Catalyst hack jobs out there.

 

The 'new' AlienRespawn is a rebranded version of Dell DataSafe Local. There was a thread with pictures somewhere - cant recall where. In any event, its going to function the same. Be sure to use the 'Create Recovery Media' option before anything else - preserve the factory image. I suggest using a flash drive - 8GB flash stick will work.

 

Yeah, i think i found that thread with pictures of a "new" datasafe rebranded "respawn" again...looks the same but re-done in different colours etc...

1st thing i ALWAYS do is to create recovery media - hence the confusion as my 1st system had datasafe, searched for that on the new system and couldnt find it anywhere....thats when a tech told me it was respawn....seem to remember hearing that this was outdated and not used.....

They musta dusted it off, tarted it up and re-released it......