AlienRespawing the M15x

After several attempts at "AlienRespawing" my M15x, I realized it has a bad recovery partition: pressing F10 hangs.

Therefore, I have decided to destroy, err, reformat the whole Hard Disk and install Win7 (ultimate).

Before I do so, this machine comes with 2 CDs: AlienWare Driver and AlienWare Win7 CD. I assume *ALL* Alienware Drivers are truly inside this CD? Can anyone enumerate the special AlienWare M15x applications that are needed such as the AlienFX?

Also, I noticed that when I was trying to install printers on the M15x, it didnt ask for any drivers - it already has those files; at first I thought it was a Win7 thing. Then when I tried installing the same printers on Toshiba Qosmio Q850, it asked for the drivers. Was it because M15x has Win7 Ultimate while Q850 has plain WIn7 Home Premium? Or was this simply AlienWare Win7 has packed all the known drivers?

 

if i can remember right, not all the drivers are on the disk like bluetooth, but most of them are in the disk. also there is a new command center on dell driver page. the first thing you should install is the chipset drivers,after that just install the rest of the drivers in any order, except for osd and cc should be the last thing to install. here is a link for drivers download page for M15x if you need it.

http://support.dell.com/support/dow...emID=ALW_LP_M15X&os=WV64&osl=en&catid=&impid=

 

@InappropriateName_3, I noticed you got Highest End M15x specs! Yet opted for just 4GB RAM.. any reason why you opted for just 4GB instead of 8GB?

Was it because you wanted to stick with 32bit OS?

 

i think 8gb is alittle bit overkill,but i should of went with 6gb, cause i'm running a few vm's right now and want to dedicate more memory for them. and i'm using 64 bit right now. 8gb is not really needed unless your doing alot of video coding.

 

I am having difficulty with the Bluetooth.

Is it correct that the Win7 BT driver for the M15x is also same that on Vista?
And is called Wireless 370 Bluetooth minicard?

 

*BUMP* this post.

Being a new Alienware owner, I'm confused about the how this "Alien Respawn" works.

I ASSUMED, from my experience owning laptops of other brands, that the partition on the M15x (14.6g "Recovery") contains what is needed to bring the the unit to factory conditions. On both my old HP and Sony laptops, there was a proprietary "Recovery Manager" type program which, when ran, took care of the rest - format, reinstall OS, [unfortunately] reinstall bloatware. This was all accomplished WITHOUT the use of any disks or any other devices.

Is this not how Alienware works? If not, what is contained on this mysterious "Recovery" partition?

 

That is how the Alienware works, but with the bigger systems M15x and M17x you can get a respawn DVD which essentially gives you that factory image again as well. As if you were installing a new HDD it may come in handy. But the Factory recovery partition does the same.

 

In my case, the AlienRespawn on the Hard disk is broken. It wont restore the system back to "original factory" install. In fact, it does NOTHING.

I was not able to create the install system on DVDs when I had the chance. So I have to use the provided Win7 CD and Drivers. But not all drivers are on these CDs unfortunately...

All in all, my HDD#0 is now a single partition and not confusing. I managed to install ONLY the services what I want/need and that really trimmed down alot of unwanted services.. Previously, I had about 70-90 services, now its down to just 52!

 

you can just use the dell data safe program to make a backup disk if you wish. since i'm using a ssd, i didn't like having an extra partition taking up space.