HOW TO: Preserve AlienRespawn - stock drive to aftermarket drive / AlienRespawn Q&A

Um, can you rephrase your statement about disappearing recovery drive? Did that happen after you INSTALL AlienRespawn, or AFTER running DSLcheck.exe prior to downloading AlienRespawn? Did windows disk management display the correct size of your drive(s)?

As for your question, correct me if I'm wrong:
You have/had recovery partition (you said it's missing), installed alienrespawn, and now you want to go back to factory image.

If AlienRespawn can detect your recovery partition after going into boot options, yes you can, but if alienrespawn can't detect it, well, the only viable option IMO is to boot from recovery media. The media will reformat your drive to its factory state (much slower than the recovery partition would)

I also had the exact same problem with you, lest I have m11x r2.

I had to revert factory-state using the recovery media, and that's after I installed bunch of apps and store data. I completely forgot the meaning of 'factory-state' then. I just wanted to have alienware look after clean install. Got to reinstall everything then..

And you say you made noob mistake...

Hope that helps.

 

It disappeared after I installed AlienRespawn and when I ran DSLcheck.exe prior it said I had everything required to use AlienRespawn and since the recovery drive disappeared after my first assumption was the factory state was stored on that and after installing AlienRespawn it took the factory state from that. I still need to create the system recovery media. Waiting to go and get some DVD's for that

 

Well, if that's the case, I assume you see the recovery partition gone missing from explorer. Actually it's not missing, it's just that AR hides it, in order to do see the partition you'll need to use disk management snap-in from administrative tools.

For recovery media, I'd prefer a flash disk, but I guess DVD is ok, as long as it does the job..hope everything is goes well. Don't forget to stash the media somewhere safe.

 

Found it thanks for the help

 

I started another thread Here and have had 60ish views with no responses. Any help here by chance???

 

i want to restore my system to the original state. will i still get that "first system use" message again?

 

Yes and even with a fresh install.

 

Bat Boy. I have been looking all over the web with someone with advanced knowledge of AlienRespawn/Dell Data Safe. I have an M11x and upgrade to the 2.0 "premium" AlienRespawn. Whether or not it was worth it is another matter. Anyway, in the "Manage Backup" section it infers that one car create a recovery partition and adjust the size of it with a slider to take from 5-30% of your hard drive's total space. I am aware of the Factory Installed recovery partition 14+ GB mostly empty. I have in fact done a factory restore and was successful. What I would like to do however, is to have a recovery partition that actually contains my full backups as is alluded to in the Manage Backups section. This does not seem to do anything however. There is no where to chose such a partition in the full backup section. IF the drive letter is not available, you do not have an option for a hidden partition. Do you know anything about this or how it is intended to work?

 

UPDATE:


I got my M18x. I cloned the image before first boot up and moved it onto a smaller drive and it WORKS LIKE A CHARM!!!!!!

 

Nice! I'm glad to hear that works. I just got rid of my Alienware OS installation and all factory partitions. But, I also have that image in case I ever decide to go back to the factory install for some reason.

Have fun with your M18x.

 

Gonna try this today!!!!!

 

How did you do it? can you make a tutorial? I just received my m17x with 320g hard drive and I want to change it to 256g ssd.

 

Use Acronis home. It's $10 with the purchase of a HD from Newegg. I did the same thing - my 17x came with a 750GB drive and I cloned it to a 256GB SSD before first boot. Worked great.

 

Hey all, I didn't use my Alienrespawn to make an image but I have a "RECOVERY E:\dell\Image\Factory.wim" thats 5.7 gigs. How do I use that to restore my computer?

I'm currently using a 120 SSD / 320gig combo but I'm going to do 2x120 SSD in raid 0.

Will the factory image only work on my original 320gig hard drive? I'm worried that once I start to restore the image, it will not let me restore it because its looking for a 320gig hard drive.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

 

You certainly may run into some issues, but you're better off doing a truly clean installation rather than using Alienrespawn to restore a factory image. (The factory image has some bugs and you will get better system performance from a standard Microsoft Windows 7 installation.)

Download Windows 7 x64 SP1 ISO from link in this thread: LINK

When you have finished downloading the ISO, use the instructions and download the 3 utilities found in the first post in this thread (at the end of the first post): LINK

(Use the ei.cfg removal tool, the Microsoft ISO burning tool, and the ABR tool to backup and restore your existing activation.)

Works like a charm... I've done it twice. You'll need to download drivers from support.dell.com. I would recommend downloading and installing the latest chipset/HD 3000 drivers from Intel and the Catalyst 11.8 package rather than using the Dell version of drivers for these two items. For RAID0 you will need to either download the F6 drivers from Intel or Install the Rapid Store Technology utility and convert the installation to RAID0 after the clean install. You will not get a significant performance increase from RAID0, but you will increase your chances for data loss running RAID0.

 

Thanks for the info. My new SSD will arrive in a couple days and I will try this!

 

Can anyone tell me the size of USB drive required to back up the factory settings of my M14x. I have the basic stock softwares.

Thanks in advance.

 

Hi,

It depends on the O.S. version plus ordered and preloaded softwares, but in your case I think an 8 GB USB flash disk should do the job.

 

Is anyone knowledgeable on the three partitions, the RECOVERY, the OEM (manufacturer), and the OS Partition?

I did a clean -install of Windows 7 (formatted it) on the "OS" partition, but I also did LEAVE the RECOVERY and OEM partition.

Is there a way to utilize the RECOVERY or OEM partitions to restore the computer to factory specs FASTER than formatting and re-instaling the drivers Like I just did? Because this is taking hours.

I still do have the resource DVD and the Alienware "Windows 7" home premium CD.

I never made the Alien respawn CD either when I first got the computer so I'm not sure if that makes a difference. I'm assuming there might be a quicker way to jump back to factory settings and take use of these OEM and Recovery Partitions, since the stock windows has Windows Service Pack1 on it .

 

That depends on what you are calling "settings". An 8GB flash is plenty of space for Windows 7 USB installation media.

If you are talking about backing up your OS partition or drive with all of your currently installed apps and games, using maximum compression, try more like 50% of the total used disk space as the bare minimum. (I've never seen an USB flash drive large enough to do this. A 50GB DL Blu-Ray disc is not even close to being enough capacity to do this. It would take 2 or 3 DL-BD discs.

 

You can set up your computer just the way you want it (drivers, updates, etc) and then create a system image. Windows 7 has a built in system image backup tool, you will find it in Control Panel\System and Security\Backup and Restore
Choose 'create a system image' from the left hand side, and it will backup your whole windows and everything on the C: drive to backup media of your choice.

To restore, go to Control Panel\System and Security\Backup and Restore then click Recover system settings or your computer then click Advanced recovery methods then click Use a system image you created earlier to recover your computer
Or you can boot from a Windows disk and choose to recover your computer from there

 

Wow! Thank you so much ! Reps!

 

Absolutely Awesome, thanks for a great post.

Editing to add a question:

When the unit is shipped, it comes with a couple of discs, right? I was thinking the M14x came with a recovery style alienware disc(I had to return it after 24 hours because of loads of problems and just ordered my m18x today) but I guess my question is, are those discs for recovery to a fresh unboxed state, or do they just have the drivers and alienfx type programs on them?

Either way, I am going to utilize the information you have added here, because it is absolutely priceless.

Thanks again!

 

Quick question. My SSD just came and I installed it. I booted using my usb drive alienrespawn recovery media, it loads windows up fine up to the choose keyboard page, the next page is the "Restore your system to a system image.." option, i click next, then the following error message pops up: "The system cannot find the file specified (0x80070002)"

Is it a problem with the recovery file in the usb media? Or is it a problem with something else. What do you guys think?

 

Hi,

I would say that your SSD is smaller than your stock drive this is what is causing the problem.

I removed my 750Gb drive and installed a hybrid momentus Xt 500GB which is very fast for a conventional drive and had the same issue with errors when trying to respawn on to a smaller drive.

I tried everything to get respawn to work and it won't respawn to a smaller drive.
You can clean install which i did originally but it is a chore and totally unnessesary

How i did it was to put the new drive in to a hard drive caddy which i bought from ebay for £3.50.

ORANGE 2.5" SATA - USB HARD DRIVE CADDY CASE ENCLOSURE | eBay

This is the one I bought it takes upto 500GB Sata Drive and esy to swap drives only 1 screw.


I then installed Acronis True Image Home 2011 in the Tools and Utilities section you will find CLONE DISK which you use to clone your original drive to the new drive in the harddrive caddy.
Just show it your source drive and destination drive and it will sort it out for you.

WARNING Acronis has to reboot your system to clone the disk so as it is rebooting disconnect the usb harddrive caddy for a few seconds or the M14X bios will try to boot from it.

(as it starts to boot into acronis clone manager quickly plug the usb harddrive caddy back in)

Once the clone is complete swap the drives and there you have it new drive with original setup.

I found that its best to plug the usb caddy in the usb 2.0 port on the left hand side off the M14X.

(keep original drive safe somewhere just in case)

Everything will work except Alien respawn so uninstall it, you then use Acronis true image 2011 to make a system restore disk and system boot disk or just use windows backup.

Everything elase works perfectly fine i.e alien autopsy etc.

ENJOY

 

QUESTION

Could I just use Norton Ghost before first ever windows startup to backup the C: drive, so when I restore it, it will be exactly like I'd never turned on the laptop before?

 

I would say give it a go as nobody has as yet, it has to be the only way as mentioned by other members.

Just remember to never start it up just remove the harddrive and take a ghost copy.

good Luck,let us know the out come.

 

I have the Norton Ghost 15 recovery CD, so I should be able to boot that up before going into Windows for the first time, and then make the Ghost copy from there and burn it to DL DVD or something

I'm going to order my M17x R3 in about 2 weeks time, but as soon as I get it I will post my result here

I'll first do the backup (without booting into Windows at all, this is possible because I have the norton ghost recovery disk which loads its own pre-environment), then start up windows and play about with it for a bit, then format the drive and restore the backup and see if it still appears to be like its the first time ever its been turned on.

 

Can anybody with a factory OS setup tell me if their alienware has a 100MB 'system reserved' partition? You can check by right clicking on 'Computer' (from the start menu), then 'Manage', then 'Storage', then 'Disk Management'.

If you have it, it won't have a drive letter and it will be 100mb in size.

Its very important, without it (e.g. after a full HDD format) even restored OS will fail to boot up, making it a pain to get backup HDD images working. It is possible to recreate this 100mb partition contents on the main C: drive, making backup restores without this 100mb partition possible.

 

Anyone got tips on how to clone a raid 0 setup of two 750GB to a single drive? I'll probably get a SSD as my OS drive and use one of the two 750GB for my secondary.

I'd like all the recovery partition to work on the new drive as well. I've read through all the posts here and Acronis True Image is the best software for this job? I understand that I will need to clone it before the first boot up for the partition to work on the new drive so is it possible to clone the raid 0 to an external HDD via USB and then clone it back to SSD?

I'm new to this cloning thing eventhough I've been using computers for ages. Thanks for the help and sorry for my poor english btw.

 

mine doesnt
39mb no driver letter first partition
recovery at 14.65GB
C: at 451.07GB

 

Thanks for that.
The 100mb partition I am talking about normally has about 38.3MB of data on it which is used to boot/recover Windows after POST.

Since your partition is 39MB, Dell/Alienware must have shrunk the 100MB partition Windows always makes to 39MB, just to free some extra MBs. This is an annoyance for those wanting to migrate to SSDs, I suspect this can cause misalignment issues...

 

Ok guys Ive figured something out the past few days playing with Respawn. Have you ever tried to use respawn on a new haddrive thats smaller then your stock one???? Lets say a SSD? but it errors out or says yo uhave to use a HDD atleast the stock size right. I figured how to do it no matter what size your HDD is. Instead of choosing restore to factory and changing patritions just choose restore then you will see system backup pick that and it will work. Reason How i figured this out is cause I tried a while back to install a SSD in my M11xR3 but couldnt cause it wanted atleast a 320GB HDD when running the respawn from USB but I recently recieved an M14x for my wife and she isnt savy with computers so i wanted the complete factory settings on there with respawn just incase she crashed it she can fix it that easy.

 

Im looking to get the 500GB 7200rpm stock and put a 128GB SSD in when I get it. (I have a desktop and external, both with ample storage)

If I used something like DriveImage XML to create an image of the 500GB when I first got it and then restored that image to the SDD would this work? Or is respawn completely necessary?

 

How i did it was to put the new drive in to a hard drive caddy which i bought from ebay for £3.50.

ORANGE 2.5" SATA - USB HARD DRIVE CADDY CASE ENCLOSURE | eBay

This is the one I bought it takes upto 500GB Sata Drive and esy to swap drives only 1 screw.


I then installed Acronis True Image Home 2011 in the Tools and Utilities section you will find CLONE DISK which you use to clone your original drive to the new drive in the harddrive caddy.
Just show it your source drive and destination drive and it will sort it out for you.

WARNING Acronis has to reboot your system to clone the disk so as it is rebooting disconnect the usb harddrive caddy for a few seconds or the M14X bios will try to boot from it.

(as it starts to boot into acronis clone manager quickly plug the usb harddrive caddy back in)

Once the clone is complete swap the drives and there you have it new drive with original setup.

I found that its best to plug the usb caddy in the usb 2.0 port on the left hand side off the M14X.

(keep original drive safe somewhere just in case)

Everything will work except Alien respawn so uninstall it, you then use Acronis true image 2011 to make a system restore disk and system boot disk or just use windows backup.

Everything elase works perfectly fine i.e alien autopsy etc.

ENJOY

 

I assume respawn won't work because of the "not enough space" issue? Not that it matters but is there anyway to get it working?

 

Yes your right because of the "not enough space" issue it wont let you respawn.
I have tried always and it just wont do it, but if you follow my guide on how to clone your original drive it dosen't matter.

As I said before its easier to clone the drive onto your new one than to do a clean install.

 

What I would do is this:

1. Make a recovery disk of Acronis True Image 2012 using another computer, so you won't have to install it on your Alienware and 'change' anything on your Alienware HDD
2. Install your SSD in the Alienware
3. Boot from the Acronis recovery CD
4. Format the SSD to NTFS if it isn't already
5. Clone the stock HDD to the SSD (the option will be in the Tools & Utilities Section of the Recovery CD)

This way, you don't need any caddies, and you get a perfect, untouched (even by Acronis) clone of the original HDD.
Plus, using caddies through USB is slower (unless you use USB 3.0) then using the actual HDD/SSDs in the laptop itself.

Also, don't bother with AlienRespawn, if you create a backup of your original HDD using Acronis or Norton Ghost, preferably before first ever Windows boot up, your laptop will be like it was never turned on before; it will even ask for your details at start up all over again. This is useful if you want to troubleshoot hardware problems, or even sell the laptop (the buyer would be able to enter his own details into the laptop as he pleases)

 

Thats false I just figured this out the other day with my wifes M14x and then did it to my M11xR3 instead of clicking restore to factory just pick restore and it will reconize the backup.wim or what ever the files called and will restore the system back to factory.

 

Good job, buddy! +1 rep.

 

guys,

quick question, I am about to create my own recovery disk thru respawn by alienware.

I am planning to get an SSD in the future, once i get one would this recovery disk work to install windows and all the drivers to the new ssd drive?

 

yes it should

 

Okay cool, just making sure. thats pretty cool, what about the wallpapers from alienware and all the rest of the alienware add ons?

 

Ok, so my understanding is if I simply choose backup and follow the prompts, that it will now work on my 256gig SSD? If so, thank you for figuring this out for us. So many people have been having issues with this problem and this fix seems so simple.

 

I thought I remember reading on here that respawn only works on the same size drive it was originally made on?

 

It's hit and miss when the new drive is smaller than the original. I was not able to respawn from a 750GB HDD to a 240GB SDD.

 

wallpapers should be also on there, however if you ever lose your respawn discs the wallpapers are built-in with all alienware discs windows 7 using SP1.

 

damn, those are bad news

anyone else has experienced this?

 

KurtH on page 14 of This thread seems to have found the answer to the different sized drives issue. Worth a look.

 

thanks mate! that seem to have worked for many people.