SSD install R4

Hi everyone, I recently received my R4 yay! I am pretty excited as I have always wanted an Alienware so this is pretty awesome for me I also received my new SSD that I would like to put into the laptop as well. It is a Samsung 840 Pro 512 Gb. I have looked at a lot of the threads on here about how to do so but some seem older then others and there seems to be a few different ways of going about it. My system came with two 500Gb hard drives in Raid 0. I want to of course replace one with the SSD and use the other for storage. The only thing I have done so far on the laptop is update the windows 7 and that is it.

So from reading so far I know I am suppose to do a respawn image at this point to make a back up in case everything goes to hell lol. Now the part I am a little confused on from reading is can I just install the new SSD now and use the respawn I have made and load that up on the SSD or do I have to do a fresh install of windows and all the drivers in the right order from the driver and fresh windows install guides? ( which seems like a big pain to be honest lol ) Since the laptop came set up as raid 0 would I also need to change any bios settings as well? I have been looking for videos etc to get some additional help but I cant find any useful ones for my situation. I build my own home desktop PCs no problem but when it comes to the laptops I am clueless, this is actually my first one I have also read different opinions on which slot to put the SSD in as well. Any help would be appreciated and I will check back here shortly!


Thank you!

 

Hi there. You can use an image to restore to the new SSD BUT do not make any changes like turning off RAID in the BIOS or it will fail. You want the same disk drivers to be used and setting AHCI will cause windows to BSOD. You do need to break the RAID before removing one drive and putting in the SSD. I am unsure of what happens if you do this from within windows (IRST) but you can do it on the boot screen that shows the disk config, and do this as the last thing before putting in the SSD. Doing it this way will retain the ability to use RAID and or caching in the future. Eg, you want to add another large SSD or a small msata caching one to speed up the mechanical drive.

And you'll want your image on an external drive as you may loose it when breaking the RAID.

Slot is of no importance on the R4, you just set the boot order in the BIOS to match the SSD.

Any clarification, ask away

 

Thanks for the help. So I am going to do the respawn image to a flash drive, set boot order, swap SSD in the laptop then good to go? Since I will have the image on the flash drive I need to set that as the boot device, then after its on the new SSD change boot order again afterwards? thank you for the help!

 

Sounds good but I'm not sure of the sequence for the restore, the last time I used an image I used 3rd party freeware that comes with a boot option to start the restore (F12 to select boot device one-time). Breaking the RAID will be important, it's in firmware and just putting in the SSD will confuse it. It might be fine but also it might not see the drive at all?

Edit: at the boot screen with the disk config you want to see two non-raid drives, there is a hot-key on screen to go into it if it needs changing.

 

It's quite simple, since you made respawn disk.

Remove hdd's change the bios settings, add ssd and run respawn disk, super easy.

 

If I just can give a little advice although I'm not sure it applies to R4 systems, but for R3 slot 0 was known to give some issues with SSD, so it was recommended to put it in slot 1. Don't know if it's the same with R4, you'll have to check that out, but I just thought I'll let you know.

 

Well I see there is a typical problem with the respawn onto the SSD with size issues saying the drive is too small etc and a few other problems that you can potentially run into so.....after reading a bunch more I decided to do the non lazy way since I have a ton of time on my hands and do a fresh install lol. I will let ya know how it goes Thanks again for your help and if I bump into any problems I will let ya know.

 

Yeah, there was a problem with the SATA III on the R3 and only one port operated correctly. Dell dropped it (SATA III) completely with later BIOS releases. The R4 has a different chipset and works fine

 

I can see that happening. Using imaging software you get the option to resize the partitions.

Only gotcha I know about is making sure you let all the windows updates happen before installing the dell command centre - last person that had issues with this reinstalled then just loaded the network driver first, waited for windows to update, then continued with all the other drivers and software; all was good.

Good luck

 

Yop, precisely, my driver installation order was :

Chipset driver
Usb 3.0 driver
Intel Rapid storage + management engine
Alien OSD
Network drivers
WINDOWS UPDATE

and then I followed the order given here (very good tut) :
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...er-install-order-guide-alienware-systems.html

Although I think my multiples problems were caused by a incompatibility between my graphics drivers and some windows update, this order (kindly advised by Micky ) worked perfectly, so it should be no problem for you this way.

 

Ok I have a few bumps lol. I am following Batboys guide on the fresh install, he has the windows updates as a thing to do after all the dell drivers have been installed. So should those updates be first before the drivers are done or last as stated? The other problem I am having is the wording of some of the drivers on the Dell page. According to the guide I need the LAN driver, wireless, and blue tooth drivers. I am not sure which one to download, there is two Intel BT drivers for my wireless card ( N 2230 ) and I do not see one there specifically stating that it is a LAN driver. Which ones in the list for the 17 R4 is the LAN one? I can see the two Intel BT drivers are the ones I need but unsure which driver in that list is the LAN one. Thanks again for the help guys, I am a little lost on this one lol

 

I just go with whatever works for me and just installing the network, letting windows do it's thing, and then install all the rest is how I always do it - until I get a problem.
The LAN should be the atheros gigabit controller - check in device manager. Don't worry too much if you pick a wrong one for the wireless BT. The Intel drivers are pretty good and will not install on the wrong hardware. You'll get a message telling you.

Good Luck

 

Well I have one problem at the moment, the audio driver when trying to install asks me to insert a disc? I downloaded the driver for the Recon 3Di but when I try to install it is asking me to insert disc#1?? Any ideas? thanks!

 

Sounds like dell have posted the wrong file. Have you tried looking on the resource CD that came with the machine?

 

When you're looking for drivers on the Support Portal it's better if you choose from a list of all Alienware products and select your laptop model instead of using the service tag to find drivers for it. You'll get all the drivers available for the R4 and then simply download the ones needed.

As an alternative, I found these the other day:

Alienware M17x R4 drivers

I'm still not sure how I stumbled upon this webpage but apparently it has got a list of all drivers as well as previous versions, if you find any trouble getting some drivers from Dell's support portal you could try those. It shouldn't be necessary but I guess having more than one option never hurts.

 

Hi there
I did that last week.
I bought ssd from ocz (256 GB Vector) and I had a 1 TB (5400 rpm).
-I didn't have or make it any image, re spawn etc.I have original windows 7 from alien ware and that is.
Before I started, I make folders for drivers on extern usb drive.For BIOS, network etc. Downloaded from dell's.
And I didn't have any particularly order to install drivers. I always starting with chipset, BIOS, network.
Anw, my R4 working like a dream and I'm not sure why you need to re-spawn your system?
Fresh copy of windows is always better than Image or backup.
I mean, if you dont have any data...

 

Ya I did not use the service tag etc for the drivers I just chose the model and went from there. There was only one audio driver available on the support portal and it was for the one I have. I guess I will try some others and see what happens, thanks again guys!

 

Yay! I am good to go I think lol. Is there any adjustments i should make at this point to the SSD? for example those guides to optimize, or any other programs relating to it that would be beneficial etc or does the fresh install take care of those settings now? One other last item, as long as everything is ok now, it is fine to format the other hard drive that is still in the machine correct? thanks again everyone for the help! next time this should go a lot smoother heh

 

Good news! you're good to go with formatting the drive. I don't know about any optimisation methods, I do use system mechanic pro to do it's 'thing' on the drive but have no idea if it helps. I have been told that a fresh installation of windows takes care of any SSD optimisation but again, no real data

 

Depending on your ssd drive and OS.
TRIM function is available now on most of ssd drive.So, basically, you don't need to do anything.Os will take care your ssd drive.
And one more thing: you cant upgrade firmware for your ssd if you have OS on it.
You can, but, not in few steps like without OS.

 

Hi,

I have just purchased the same laptop with a Samsung 840 120 GB SSD. I was going to follow this guide

which recommends a bunch of tweaks (disabling Hibernate, Pagefile etc). I am a little confused now with your post, are you saying this is not required and that the OS takes care of my SSD drive?

many thanks in advance...

 

I actually followed that same guide to disabiling things. Like it says, you will actually gain about 9gb of space back from doing this. Just remember the "Eliminate writing memory to the SSD" tweak, that you have plenty of memory.

 

Sorry for not responding before.
-I have OCZ's Vector 256 GB ssd drive on my m17 r4
I didn't disable anything.
-fresh copy of win pro 7, with last drivers from dell. That is all.
And I have booting less than 12 sec. After 15 sec I can surf and use my windows.
After upgrading my r4, with a ssd drive, my rig is super fast.

 

hey guys sorry but this might sound like a dumb question:
if my r4 came with a 500gb hdd and i make a back up using alien respawn as soon as it arrives(i cant wait ) then switch a ssd to the hdd slot and move the hdd sot to the other slot then restore the back tha i made from a usb(alien respawn) would i still need to install all drivers again? (again sorry i don't mean to be a noob i just really dont know)

 

Hi, I've seen people do it that way without a problem. You don't even need to swap the bays, just change the boot order in the BIOS.

Good luck and congrats on your new purchase!

 

ok cool so i would not need to install drivers again. thanks for your help!

 

No problem. Just don't make any other changes to the BIOS (like disk access) and it should just fire up like nothing has happened - only super fast

Edit: If respawn works for you the same as me, it detected that the new drive did not have a factory partition and took me through creating one, then backing up to it, nice touch.