Is there a way to Restore my m17x to out of box state?

I still have all the original partitions, I'm just curious if I could reset my comp back to the way it came?....I've heard of a respawn disc, whcih I don't have, nor was I given the option to get one. If it is possible what are the steps to do so?

 

Upon start up, after you see the AW head you should see a "Alienware Respawn - press F10"

 

Negative, Never had that option....I've looked for it before when I first heard of respawn....I think mine just came without the option to do so.

 

Cant remember right off the top of my head, but sometimes Dell play about with where the restore sector is. Look closley on startup and see if any F key is highlighted to enter system recovery. Failing that, did you buy it from Dell or a reseller, also have you ever formatted your machine. If you have formatted it, you may have deleted the respawn partition. If it came from a reseller like mine...It prob never had a respawn partition. If you got it from Dell call them up and request respawn disks....

 

Yea there's no option for respawn....I did buy it directly from Dell...do they give out respawn discs to customers? I've heard some people had the option to buy one when they ordered theirs, but I never had that option either. I would enjoy if they do indeed have them. I can't imagine respawn discs are system specific.

 

Well, Dell do try to blag and say they are only available at point of purchase. If you get a good tech/sales rep they will send you them out. Pseronally i am not fussed about respawn disks, as they come with bloat ware....I like to do a fresh install and load the most upto date appz via the dell website....Also i like the option to instal the applications i want, with no need for any uninstalling straight after a OS reload.......Thanx to a friendly person on the forum ( i forget their name, however rep was given ) I am able to put what ever splash screen i want on my system so i can still keep the alienware feel....

 

During boot if you hit F8 like you were going into safe mode you should have a selection to repair computer. I believe that there is where you can do a complete restore of the partition.

 

Respawn was only for the R1 that is why Dell includes the windows 7 disc and the drivers disc.

 

The windows 7 disc and drivers disc are another way to restore your computer if needed. But on all Dell and Aleinware R2 systems there is a partition called "recovery". This partition on my m17Xr2 is about 8.9GB large. As long as you have not change the original disc partitions this partition should there. It is from this partition that the option of "Repair computer" gets its information. If you have ever reformated your disc, then you will have to use the windows 7 and drivers disc option.

 

i have an R1 and it has the respawn partition, but the partition is for Vista and i have windows 7. the respawn partition is useless in that case. that's possibly the same in your case if you have a older R1.

to check and see if you even have the partition you can do this:

Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management
then click Disk Management while in Computer Management.
if you have the partition it will say Respawn. otherwise you don't have one.

 

Necrotopsy,

I am sure that you are correct about the R1 system. That is why I clearly identified that I was talking about the M17xR2 system. I don't have an R1, so I don't know about its restore procedure. Yes, you are correct if your computer came with an OS that is different than the one you are currently running then you must use the current OS disc and the drivers from Dell.

 

if all else fails...you need to set the recovery partition as "active" and unhide it. it will automatically boot from it and allow you to do a factory restore....provided you didn't do like a lot of people do...delete the recovery partition. "for some off the wall reason"