SSD and Format question

hello in 1 week my alienware m17x r4 come to my house and since I already have one ssd I was wondering how do I add my ssd and put the operating system, I guess the m17x r4 has 2 slots to put the hard drive right? Just put the ssd in slot 2, or should I put where is the hard drive and put the existing hard drive in slot 2? and to reinstall the operating system I have to use Windows 8 64bit, MUI Resource DVD?

thx for asnwer and sorry for english error

 

Welcome to the forums newbie. Your English is just fine. :thumbsup:

The drive slots in your R4 are labeled on the metal drive caddys. HDD 0 is the slot 1, HDD1 is the slot 2. You should always have your SSD in HDD 0 as that slot runs at SATA III speeds which your SSD will probably be able to run at. The HDD 1 slot may only be SATA II so the hard drive should go in slot 2. So as you thought, put the SSD where your hard drive is right now, and put the hard drive in slot 2. But don't put the hard drive in slot to until you install Windows on the SSD. So remove the hard drive from slot 1, install your SSD in slot 1, then install windows on your SSD. Once Windows is setup and running, then install your hard drive into slot 2. That way the R4 won't get confused on which drive you want to install Windows on.

 

thx for answer, another question before remove hard disk from slot 1 i have to format it right? because if i dont when i install OS on SSD then put the hard disk on slot 2 laptop detects 2 windows 8 right?

 

No, do not format the hard drive before you remove it. One, if you have any personal files or data on there, then it will all be gone after you format. Two, if anything goes wrong with installing Windows on the SSD, you can always put the hard drive back into the notebook and continue running the machine without having to reinstall windows on it. Only format it after your SSD is set up and after you have backed up all the files you have on the hard drive.

 

You can always remove it for the install and then pop it back in when done.

 

This is true and that way you will be able to pull your files on the new SSD.

 

but if i dont format the hard disk when i install OS on SSD then put hard disk on slot 2 there is no problem if alienware detect 2 Windows 8? how i know if laptop use SSD win8 or hard disk win8?^^

 

You tell the system to use the SSD before the hard drive using the Boot priority list in the BIOS.

 

ah ok perfect ^^ thx all, i have to use the resource dvd that come with alienware right?

 

Yup yup yup!

 

I am having trouble with installing a new SSD into my alienware mx17 r4. I don't have a copy of windows 8 (didn't come with the system).
So I tried using alien respawn but I got the message error, something about not having enough memory on the SSD (500GB HDD to 256 SDD).
Tried using the Samsung data migration that came with the SSD - Tried booting up from the SSD but then it tells me that I can't login to my profile due to some error (sorry to be vague but I have been working at this for the last 4 hours and am not technically inclined for this stuff)

What are other options to get this working because I don't know how to get my OS onto my SSD.

 

What OS did your R4 come with originally? I'm not sure if Alienware is including a recovery media with the R4's pre-installed with Windows 8. But if you're under warranty, you can PM one of the Alienware reps here in the forums and see if they can't send you the OS recovery media. At least with that, you can do a clean install of Windows onto your new SSD.

 

hi guys,

I have a similar question.. I managed to get some virus/malware and seem to lost my admin privileges on my computer... decided to after doing a backup just wipe it clean , put a fresh win7 on it.
I have a M17x r4, with 64 GB SSD cache drive, and 500 GB HDD, all set up by Alienware. When putting in the Win7 CD and stating the install, at the point where it asks me which drive i want to install win7 I do not see any drives.
Any suggestions please? Is it something to do with Raid 0 setup ?

thanks
Mike

 

OK guys, since I'm not getting feedback elsewhere - I also just installed a new SSD, made it my boot drive, installed Windows 7 on it. My other drive is the 750 GB SSD that came with the system.

After installing Windows 7 on the SSD from the Windows 7 DVD that came with the system, I saw it apparently didn't install any drivers for my hardware (including no wireless card driver.) So I have an install and no drivers.

Is my only option to go the Dell site (using my other notebook, since my M17x doesn't have a wireless card driver on it now) and download every driver from the drivers page (filtering for my service tag) and install them? I assume I don't need to install the BIOS - when I filter for my service tag I see 16 files when I skip the BIOS. And is there an order I need to install these in?

 

Yes, get a USB disk and put the raid drivers on it.

 

Possible. At that disk screen you should see an option to load a different driver. Download and expand the IRST software from dell onto a USB stick and point the install at that. It should then show 'Intel RAID' driver and hopefully you will then see the drive. Good luck

 

Shouldn't the Alienware Windows recovery DVD have the Intel RAID drivers on them already? I could have sworn I used that DVD for those drivers.

You can use the resources DVD that came with your system (if it was included). It will contain the correct driver packages for your system, but only the stock drivers. If you want the latest drivers, you will have to update to those after you install the stock drivers.

PS: 750GB SSD? Really? I wasn't aware they existed for our notebooks?

 

Sorry, wouldn't have needed the 512 GB SSD if I'd had that! 750 GB HDD

 

thanks guys, i did download the driver, put it on a USB, clicked Load driver button on the select Hard drive screen in win7 install, but after clicking Browse, I don`t see any of my USB drives!
I can only see my CD drive with win7 install CD in there, and an X:/ drive called system ?!
i tried all 4 USB ports, and when using it normally they do work alright.

Just read Radji`s post again, so are you suggesting i swap the win7 cd for the resource CD and the IRST driver should be on there?

 

So you don't see any drives other than the DVD? Have you made any bios changes such as UEFI? Just guessing...

You could swap out the win dvd for the resource dvd and it should find the driver there but this is not sounding like a driver issue The win install can usually see the drives even in compatibility mode, it's just further down the install the RAID driver must be used.

 

Yeah, I couldn't find the iaStor.inf file on the DVDs either. Soooo, here's what I've got:

First, you should disable secureboot, fast boot, and disable/change from UEFI mode to legacy mode. That will maximize compatibility with the Windows 7 installer. I know Windows 7 is compatible with UEFI but I'm not sure to what extent and if our Alienware's are setup for Windows 7 in UEFI mode. Now check your boot tab and make sure that the USB device in the boot priority list is higher than the SSDs and hard drives. Finally make sure your hard drive's modes are set to RAID (just to be sure).

Next, you want to format your USB drive just to be sure it's clean and will make it visible to the Windows 7 installer. Then download the zip I attached. These are the AHCI and RAID drivers direct from the Dell's Intel RST driver package. Unzip all the files in the them onto the root of the USB drive. It's very important the files themselves (not the folder they're in) are saved to the USB drive's root folder. Then shutdown your system and start it back up with the USB drive already plugged in. Hopefully the USB drive will show up then when you click on Load Driver this time.

 

Thank Radji, i don`t know which part (giving priority to USB over HDD on boot list or having the right driver files on the stick) but it did help, now i can load up the RAID drivers, and see the following on the select drive to install win7 page:
Total size: Free space: comment:
Disk 1 Partition 1 39MB 38MB OEM Reserved
Disk 1 Partition 2 13.6GB 5.3GB Recovery
Disk 1 Partition 3 452.1GB 0GB Primary

I still don`t see my mSata SSD drive anywhere...
Not sure if i mentioned already, but my SSD serves a cache function right now. Is there something I should do in IRST first to break up that?
sorry for all the noob questions :S I skipped school when learning about hardwares...

 

Actually, scratch that last part.. i`m jumping ahead of myself already...
so with this , i could put on fresh win7 on the 500 GB drive, and the SSD still would serve as cache right?

my other thought was, do i actually need the SSD as cache? wouldn`t it be better to have it separated completely, and install win7 on the SSD and put everything else on the storage?
this was, if I were to extend / replace the 500GB I wouldn`t have to put on a fresh windows, that could always stay on the mSata drive?

 

Hi, you won't see the cache drive because RAID is active in the bios and it is already configured as a cache. This is in hardware/firmware so it is invisible to the OS. You can turn it off using the hot key sequence that comes up on boot - before the alienhead so that it will apear in win and you can partition and use it.

I doubt it would be worth it though as you're laready getting near SSD speeds, but your call

 

De nada. That's why we are here. In reference to your cache drive, your mSATA is "slaved" to your hard drives thru RAID in order to be a cache drive. That is, when an mSATA is being setup as a cache partition, it is set to RAID mode, as is the hard drive it will be caching. That way the SATA controller will transmit data directly between the two drives without it having to go thru any software beforehand. If you want to turn off caching in your mSATA you can. Another option that what Mickey described is to go into the Intel RST control panel and under the accelerate tab, disable acceleration for the partition the mSATA is caching. Then you would click 'set volume to active', it's in the RST control panel as well. That will cut it in Windows. In order to cut it in the BIOS you would need to go to the advanced tab in your BIOS, select your mSATA device, and set it back to AHCI (it should be in RAID). That is the dangerous part cause you need to make sure you're doing it for your mSATA and not your RAID'd hard drives.

 

ok, so as I understand from MickeyD , i should just leave it as it is, and just put on fresh win7 on the 500GB HDD and leave the mSata as Cache.
what about the partitions? should i delete Partition 2 and 3 and just create 1 ? not sure what the Recovery part is used for...

 

Partition 1 is secured space used for partition alignment. You can delete is and reformat the whole RAID array and Windows 7 will just create it again. It's meant to align the drive partitions. Partition 2 is your recovery partition. It contains all the data for Alien Respawn, which will recover your system partition back to it's original factory state. If you prefer to do a clean install as opposed to and system restore using Alien Respawn, then you can delete the recovery partition as well as forgo re-installing Alien Respawn in Windows. BUT...be warned, once you delete your recovery partition, it's a pain in the donkey to set it back up. So if you use Alien Respawn, then leave the recovery partition alone. You can always just delete partitions one and three, and leave the recovery partition alone.

 

I wish I could just use Alien Respawn, as all i want is to return to factory settings... the laptop is only 2 month old and have not made any changes to it. But the system restore points i created "disappeared" , so I`m forced for a clean install

 

Radji, MikeyD,

just thought I let you know I did manage to restore my factory settings using Alien Respawn. The reason why i wanted originally to re-install win7 as AR did not work at all.
Then, I managed to start it up in Safe Mode, running it as Admin, but then i got a " you don`t have enough disk space" error message.
the final solution which worked for me was:
1. Format a USB stick
2. Put the Raid drivers on it (thanks Radji for that, without this in Win7 installer I could not see any drive details and this became essential)
3. In BIOS raise the rank for USB to have priority over HDD
4. Start up in Safe Mode, run AR , create a USB recovery media on USB stick which is at least 8GB (or DVD)
5. Put win7 DVD in , and reboot, load from DVD drive to start up Win7 installer
6. Go to install Win7 , at the screen where you have to select a drive I did not see nothing. Here comes handy the USB stick. Important! Do not have a USB mouse plugged in ! I did and for a while i could not load the RAID drivers from the USB stick, as I did not see the drive at all. After ( by desperation really) I removed the USB mouse and rebooted, restarted the whole win7 installer process I could see my USB stick, and I could load the Raid drivers, and finally I saw my C drive and the 3 partitions.
7. The reason AR sent me the error message disk is full was right in front of me.... Partition 3 said Total space: 460 GB , Free space: 0 GB.
I had to format partition 3 (leave Partion 2 - Recovery intact! ), erase all data from it ( so make sure you save all your important files to an external drive) , then quit the installer and reboot, plug in the other USB stick with the AR recovery media on it, and boot from that (here comes handy if you put USB as first boot option in BIOS) this time, I could run AR recovery and go back to original Factory settings without that annoying error message: "you don`t have enough disk space". In just about 15-20 min I started up windows as it came from the factory

I hope this will help someone who has the same problem.
thanks for all your help guys !

 

Wow that was a real trial, but glad you got there!

 

That took some real effort. But it worked out in the end. And that's all that matters...

 

Hey guus, bumpin old thread as it's similar to my situation, I installed an ssd drive into my alienware laptop and the migration failed somehow, so I read that I should do a fresh install of Windows 7, I did this but never deleted the recovery partition in drive D. It still shows up in my computer but I have since tried creating a back up from that recovery drive but am having no luck, the drive is still there and says 6gig is used but I can't see Anything in there besides a folder with no files in it. Do any of you guys have any ideas how I can create a factory back up disc from this partition? Or is it now impossible. I only,wanted it as it will have all the drivers on it that the laptop originally came with. Kind regards

 

You will probably get some better answers, but Clonezilla works pretty well and it is free:

Clonezilla - About

I've used it a number of times for similar tasks.

 

Did your laptop not come with recovery disks ? The windows DVD and drivers should have come on separate disks. If not I believe AlienAutopsy can recreate the recovery partition on a new drive.

 

What if I have no SSD and only a 1Terabyte drive and I just install windows 7 on it cause I cant seem to find the original win 7 disc all I have is resource dvd in which it seems like it does nothing?

 

^^^I'm confused.

Do you need to install Windows 7 on your 1TB hard drive or is it already installed?

If you need to install it, you will need that Installation DVD from your OEM or get a retail copy from wherever.