HOW TO: Windows Installation Thread (includes SATA III, SSD Upgrade, RAID0 Discussion)

Here is a link to a Microsoft usb tool that installs Windows 7 to a thumb driver or HDD that is at least 4GB in size.

Microsoft Store

If you don't use the lights or anything then you don't need the Alienware software. You do need the drivers for the rest of the hardware in your computer.

 

In my opinion, clean installing Windows 7 to your SSD is the best route. Doing it this way will likely ensure better performance, overall. By cloning from an HDD to SSD, the partition may not align properly and could cause reduced performance and extra wear on the SSD. After installing drivers and ensuring everything is working properly, I would install AlienRespawn, which will create a backup of your installation. The whole process really shouldn't take too long.

As far as drivers, I would recommend downloading the latest from the website and ignore the included driver disk completely.

Edit: Woah, my phone totally wasn't loading a bunch of posts. My opinion still stands, though.

 

Copying from another thread as this one seems most relevant:

Had a question for your Mr. Fox, see you mention Windows 8 often enough, and know you did quite a bit a tweaking to get it where you wanted. So was thinking of upgrading to Win 8 myself on my m18x, but pulled out after seeing so much negative criticism. Perhaps related to the UI formerly known as Metro (or Modern UI as you call it. ).

So now that you've had it running for awhile, seem to like it quite a bit. Do you think it's worth the time, tweaking, and energy for those of us who have Win 7 to make the leap? Of course can get anyone else's opinion as well, but Mr. Fox is the only poster I've seen as of yet saying they liked Win 8 alot. Heh heh.

Cheers.

 

There are actually a couple of threads where your questions would be equally relevant in addition to this one. I have posted a lot in both of these threads, too.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...upport-thread-questions-discussions-here.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/708240-windows-7-8-a.html

I hated Windows 8 to begin with and it is a love/hate relationship even now. The hate part is two-fold. (1) the stock flavor of Windows 8 literally blows chunks in my view. (2) the "evil plan" with Windows 8 involves the next level is draconian controls with UEFI-based hardware certification and Gestapo-grade control over end users much like Apple has become infamous for. The next generation UEFI nightmare has potential to utterly DESTROY the autonomy that enthusiasts have enjoyed for years.

The move to Windows 8 is inevitable and I made a decision to move early and work through the issues so I could come out on top in the end. Windows 7 is still the better OS for enthusiasts in most ways, but it is on the pathway to obscurity as a legacy OS. Windows 8 tends to hinder CPU performance a bit. But, it has some features that are pretty sweet that help compensate for the loss.

Here are lists of the tweaks I have done (as many as I can remember) to make Windows 8 what I consider to be a really great OS.

• Install Stardock Star8
• Install Stardock Decor8
• Install Stardock ModernMix
• Install Stardock WindowsBlinds 8
• Install Stardock SkinStudio

The above apps take care of all the Windows 8 icky/ugly cartoon UI issues. It is extremely rare that I visit the Start screen (Modern UI) because it just sucks. When I have to, it is now tweaked to look a lot more like the desktop with tacky tiles instead of elegant icons. I have also done the following tweaks, a few of which I also applied in Windows 7:

• Set BIOS to Legacy Boot mode (no Secure Boot certificate crap for this guy, no thanks)
• Install Windows 8 using a local account (no Micro$oft account sign-in feature except Windows Store)
• Disable Windows 8 "Smart Screen" feature
• Disable Micro$oft Updates (must be checked for, run and installed manually)
• Disable ugly "Space Needle" Windows 8 cartoonish Lock Screen (Group Policy Editor)
• Disable driver signature enforcement, enable "Test Mode" permanently
• My_WCP_Watermark_Editor (gets rid of watermark on desktop after the above tweak)
• Disable UAC in Windows (all versions since Vista)
• Take Ownership of everything on the HDD, including system files and folders wherever possible
• Reg tweak to add "Copy/Move" to right-click menu
• Disable Windows 8 desktop "hot corners"
• Disable Windows 8 Charms Bar "hinting"
• Disable Windows Hibernation functionality
• Disable full-screen Modern Apps (launched from Start menu to desktop in windowed mode)
• TinyWindowsBorders app tweak (fixes the idiotic über-thick window borders)
• Reg tweak to add "Take Ownership" (adds feature to right-click menu)
• Reg tweak to turn off "Notification Balloons" (idiotic status messages in your task bar)
• Remove the ugly stock shortcut arrow and "shortcut to" (all versions of Windows)
  (I use FxVisor64 to add a small attractive blue arrow to identify shortcuts)
• Change Group Policy to allow use of blank local area network passwords
• Turn off password protected sharing on local area network
• Give the "Everyone" user full control of all files on local area network shares

I'm sure there is something I forgot to list... but, that covers most of it.

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Mr. Fox, sometimes it feels as if we should start an Alienware tinfoil hat club.

Really, though.. just look at that list you posted.. why in the world should someone have to do any of that just to have a functional system? I would say it's worth going ahead and moving over, given that you are willing to make many of those tweaks. The flexibility of the OS is it's most redeeming quality. The thing I dislike most about it is the direction Microsoft seems to be moving, as Mr. Fox alluded to.

Love/hate relationship, indeed...

 

Holy schnikes batman!

Those tweaks take over 1 full screen resolution at 1980x1080! I never realized that you really did all those changes to make it work. Honestly we all love to take advantage of your knowledge on this, and dang... what a list!

Er ummmm.. hmm. Honestly other than it being ineviabable...(what?) inevidible (try again). things will inevitability change!!... not sure if Win8(.1) is worth it. I do however can completely see this love / hate shining through.

LOL, tinfoil hats were removed as extras starting with the new 14/17/18 lines. Shucks..

Happy Sunday!

 

And, a happy Sunday to you as well.

Some of those tweaks are for aesthetic customization. The rest of them are implemented to forcibly take back control of things Windows 8 stole from end users to protect them from making what Micro$oft thinks are mistakes or security risks. I won't have Micro$oft making any of those decisions for me as long as I have a say in the matter.

 

Bumping for those wondering.

 

So, if your system came with a regular hard drive, if you make the alienspawn usb backup, then simply install a ssd into the empty bay, then insert usb and reboot, go to bios to move that new ssd to the top, and usb into second spot, will that not work to setup the new ssd as your main boot drive?

 

No, not unless your SSD is the same size or larger than the HDD. Respawn is not a full-featured imaging or cloning program. It makes a sector-by-sector copy of the drive. It is intended to restore the factory-fresh OS on the same drive it was originally installed on and create USB or optical media to do perform the same drive restore function. It is a good program and works well within its intended limitations.

You can use an aftermarket cloning utility to clone your HDD to SSD regardless of size. There are a number of free options out there. Seagate and Western Digital include free versions of Acronis True Image that function as long as a drive of their brand is present. Check the web site of the manufacturer for the HDD brand that arrives in your new system and you may find something there.

Be aware that cloning from HDD to SSD often results in degraded performance on the SSD. Doing a clean OS install to SSD is preferable. Some folks have cloned HDD to SSD and been happy with the results. Others, including myself, have tried it several times and found the read/write performance was less than expected. There is no harm in trying it to see if it performs well. If not, you can always do a clean OS install on the new SSD later.

 

Added to opening post for future reference...

 

A clean install is always a good option SSD or no SSD IMO.

 

As mentioned my Mr. Fox and Meaker, do the clean install on the new SSD, but before you touch anything, take the respawn image of the HDD as soon as you turn it on for the first time anyway and stash it aside. As someone who didn't do this years back on their first AW, trust me, its nice to know that no matter what you tinker with, that worse case scenario you can always get it back to that factory fresh install. It's also handy if you ever decide to sell the machine. It's a relatively fast process and is a nice thing to have around for piece of mind.

 

Hello everyone,

I'm from India and got my laptop from the US. When I got it i ordered only 750 gb hdd. Now I'm thinking of upgrading it. I have two possible options

1) Add another 750gb Sata 2. My questions here are will it be a normal plug and play? Will I have to set it up in raid and re install the OS?

2) I was thinking of adding a ssd to it. I'm not sure as to how will I be able to run the ssd and hdds together ? Please guide

thanks

Siddharth

 

Check out the opening post and additional information in this thread. Short answers are "no" to the OS reinstall and "yes" to running SSD and HDD in the same machine. (You do not want to put SSD and HDD into the same RAID array, but they coexist perfectly separately. See my signature for an example.)

 

Hello everyone! :hi2:


I recieved my Alienware 18 about a week ago and I have to say I'm in love. It's my first laptop and I feel a bit stupid from time to time. The pricetag doesn't make me feel better about the chance of screwing up either :|

Since I got it I've ordered a 256GB Samsung 840 Pro SSD that I want to install my OS (Win 8 pro) on. However, I have some questions!


I've opened up my baby and put the SSD in place, I also have a 750GB HDD and a 64GB mSata in there which it got delivered with.
Should I take any of those out when installing Windows 8 on the SSD?

The mSata & HDD, Do they need to be configured in any special way?

Also, Is there some way to see my windows 8 license or does windows 8 detect it after/during the installation? I downloaded an ISO-file linked from this forum, by "oARCHONo ", and put it on a USB boot drive thingy. Would it work to install it in such a way?


I feel so stupid But those are my questions for now, Hope someone has the time to help a bit atleast!

Buhbye for now!

 

Disable the mSATA acceleration in Intel SRT, which you should find in the notification area on the taskbar.

It's a good idea to make a backup of the 750GB HDD using Alienrespawn, or you could just keep an image of the HDD. To do this you can Google how to do it.

You can also just remove the mSATA and the HDD and just do a clean install.

To make sure the installation goes without any problem, you might want to format the SSD before plugging it in, using an external enclosure. More people prefer to leave the BIOS in Legacy mode, instead of UEFI. If you want to have UEFI, you will want to format your SSD into GPT format instead of MBR.

I'd suggest just leaving it in Legacy. To install Win 8 you will need to enter the license key before you can even start the installation. You can leave the mSATA in there, but I'd suggest taking the HDD out. To be completely safe you could just remove the HDD n mSATA.

The boot drive needs to be in the slot where the HDD was, so that you don't have to mess with boot order.

 

You can retrieve your product key and backup/restore your activation using Advanced Tokens Manager. (This works for Windows and Office products.) This is a really neat utility and I use it on all of my systems.

Other than accounting for things like the UEFI Secure Boot abortion, the process of installing Windows 8 is identical to earlier versions of Windows... nothing new here. I agree with kh90123, use Legacy mode. Also be sure you leave your BIOS set to RAID. Do not use AHCI. You can use UEFI mode with drives set in MBR mode. GPT is only necessary if you want to have a lot of partitions. I personally prefer MBR and I did not have any problems using it with UEFI enabled in the BIOS.

The advantage to removing extra drives temporarily when doing a clean install is you maintain control of where the BCD and boot sector go. If you have only one drive there is only one place where Windows can install that. If you have extra drives, sometimes Windows decides to mark another disk as active and uses a different disk for booting rather than the OS drive. I don't know why that happens, but I like having control instead of letting Windows decide how to handle it.

 

I guess I ed up.

I set bios thingy to Legacy. and booted from my USB drive. Took some time for the installation to start but I could format the SSD and partiotion it.
System prepares for install, then reboots. It should reboot a few times, atleast it says so, but it just boots to the usb drive again and i can select lannguage and format the drive.

What should I do? ;/

Sorry for my crappy explanations. BLARGH.

 

It's doing that because you left the USB thumb drive plugged in. At the time it first reboots, so simply remove the USB drive so it can't boot from it. There is some fine print that usually tells you to do that.

If you unplug the USB drive and power up now it should continue the installation process.

 

Doh. Thanks!

First time ever creating and using a usb boot disk :| Well atleast it works now.

Should i change back the settings in my bios or let it stay at legacy?
I feel a bit behind, I've been on a desktop with vista since.. well since vista came out :|


Thanks for the help, both of you (=

 

Glad you're up and running!

You should leave your BIOS settings as whatever they were when you installed Windows. If you were to change it, you wouldn't be able to boot into Windows. Same with a few other options, such as SATA Mode.

 

Why do you say to leave in RAID when he only has one drive

 

Because RAID is better and using AHCI creates limitations without offering any kind of advantages. Using RAID as the BIOS setting is the defacto standard per Intel specs where a RAID controller is available and it gives you far more flexibility if your needs or preferences change later on.

Using RAID automatically includes AHCI drivers for those that do not run drives in a RAID membership. If he later wants to create a RAID0 setup or use an SSD caching arrangement he won't be able to do that with the BIOS set to AHCI. He will need to do a clean install or edit the registry, then set the BIOS to RAID and hope everything turns out all right. It often does, but instability can sometimes result from this.

If you create drive images with the BIOS set to RAID they should be compatible with a single drive in AHCI mode, but the opposite is not true.

I only use AHCI on systems that lack a RAID controller.

 

It's also worthwhile to note that if he would want to enable the mSATA caching again, the SATA Mode would have to be RAID.

Think of it as ACHI + goodies, if you don't have a RAID volume.

Edit: Of course Brother Fox said this, but I didn't read it. I'm bad, etc.

 

That's OK... I am glad you said it just in case it was missed or dismissed. Reinforcement is always good. We can't say it enough. There is a lot of misinformation about setting the BIOS to AHCI being "better" than setting the BIOS to RAID and it is pure hogwash.

 

People are just used to the whole IDE vs ACHI thing on older computers.

If you have a raid controller built in, you can probably set it to RAID and forget it. Full stop.

 

hello guys! My alienware 18 just arrived today It came with a 750GB HDD with 64gb msata for caching. I am currently running windows 8.

When I was experimenting with the bios, I found that the default boot is set to UEFI. When I change it to legacy boot with secure boot off, and put HDD as first boot drive and restarted my com, it displayed no boot device is found. When I changed back to UEFI boot, everything works fine again.

As I am going to install a SSD as the boot drive soon, I am not sure about how to make the machine boot from SSD instead of HDD since both disks will contain the OS by then. I am not intending to format my HDD also.

It seems to me that UEFI boot doesn't give me the option of choosing boot priority and Legacy boot is unable to detect my HDD as a boot drive. Any help is greatly appreciated :thumbsup:

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m18x/725217-need-some-professional-help-drives.html

This may help you....I replaced my 64gb msata with a 512 gb msata...not sure if this is the way you want to go.....but there is a ton of help in here from some great guys...

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ace-64gb-msata-caching-512-gb-msata-boot.html

And here is where they rescued my butt when I did the install....

 

Hi guys, thanks for the reply. Read through the threads, sadly they are not applicable to my problems. I have already bought 2.5'' SSD from Samsung and I am planning to keep the mSATA for caching.

For now I wanna find out how do I use legacy boot instead of UEFI. Still searching, still no luck

 

View attachment 103306

This is what it looks like when I try to use legacy boot with HDD as the first boot device.

 

If you change a drive, with a current install on it, from UEFI to Legacy, it will not boot. It has nothing to do with secure boot, and all to do with the way that the drive is currently formatted.

When it's set to UEFI, the system is looking for ONLY GPT boot tables.

When it's set to Legacy, the system is looking for ONLY MBR boot tables.

If you want to change from UEFI to Legacy or vice versa at any time, it will require a reformat of the drive, and a reinstallation of Windows.

 

THANKS! Now I see why! Let's say if I am cloning my HDD to my SSD, the SSD would be initialised as GPT as well? In that case, how do I make sure UEFI boot using SSD instead of HDD?

 

If you made a 1:1 clone or AlienRespawn, yes it should be done up as GPT. Other imaging software is... iffy at best.

I'd honestly recommend doing it this way though. A clean install is always safer, and often better for performance.

0. Set the BIOS mode you'd like to install as. (UEFI or Legacy)
1. Remove 750gb HDD
2. Install SSD
3. Install Windows on the SSD.
4. Install 750gb HDD.
5. Copy over anything you need from the 750gb to the SSD. (Steam/Origin games can easily be transplanted like that, if they're put in the right folders.)
6. Format the 750gb HDD
7. Be happy.

 

I will be using Samsung's migration software. If the read/write speed is below average I will do a clean install instead. I will probably try both and do a comparison. My primary concern is that when I cloned the image onto SSD, both HDD and SSD will contain the OS, in this case, how will UEFI boot? From SSD or HDD? When I go into BIOS under UEFI boot, it doesn't show the boot devices as the legacy boot does. Just Windows boot manager and some other devices that I don't recognise at all

 

I was able to trick the system with Intel Rapid Storage utility. Changed from UEFI to Legacy. Used a USB external hdd with Win7 in it (my rescue boot drive) to boot, and in the utility I clicked on the SSD 256gb and selected bootable. That did the trick for me. No need to reinstall or format. I believe this utility is highly overestimated.

 

Legacy might be a better idea than UEFI for now.

Also, be careful with messing with CPU overclock and RAM speed.

Also, just so you know, if you're using Samsung EVO drive, disabling RAPID has bricked my mobo once. Since the SSD is fast as it is, using it as it's might be a better idea.

After receiving a replacement mainboard, setting the CPU OC to OC LVL 2 has bricked the system a second time. But if you're in US, for the most part bricking it only means 1 day's wait for the technician to come. So maybe bricking it will bring Dell's attention to the issues with the mainboard and the BIOS. Quite a few users have bricked the mainboard now.

And just fyi, Samsung Magician worked fine for me when I cloned from a HDD to a Samsung 840 500GB. No performance degradation. But then again I had only used it once and it worked for me that one time.

 

Oh man, I thought there will be settings to allow me to boot from SSD within UEFI. Will erasing all the content on HDD after migration do the trick?

 

Honestly speaking, you could migrate directly by just using the Windows Recovery Disk (Built into any install disk), and selecting 'boot problems'. Doing so will just format the GPT partition and add an MBR. But you might not be able to go from MBR to GPT as easily, because GPT requires space on the first segment of the drive. (Compared to MBR which uses a reserved space.)

It's still heavily recommended to let Windows format and install on to the disk in the mode that you'd like to use, as there are certain performance and stability tweaks that it uses for each mode, especially Win8 and UEFI.

You can change boot devices in the BIOS under UEFI settings. You can also use the boot menu to manually boot to specific devices, such as USB sticks for install.

The devices will have specific names, but they should both be detected by the UEFI and offer different options than what you see now, such as 'SAMS EVO: Windows Boot Manager' or something like that.

Remember that UEFI is built to be more foolproof. (And more restrictive.)

 

Really appreciate it for the clarification! UEFI boot thing really got me worried for a while mainly because I don't see traditional boot options such as boot from CD-ROM and USB etc under it

 

If it's there, it'll give you the option. I boot to my linux USB on my HTPC (on UEFI) all the time. Unfortunately, I do not exactly know what it'll look like on the AW, but it should be there.

 

To clean install using UEFI, one has to first format the disk drive into GPT using another computer. If not, you will run into problems when installing, saying that there's no disk drive detected. It's probably due to the driver not being on the disk drive.

But anyway, despite what might seem good about UEFI, stick to legacy boot. There's no difference in terms of boot time. Most users that have the AW 18 will tell you to stick to legacy instead of UEFI.

I have UEFI, but frankly, it has given me endless pain. You really don't want to mess with the BIOS too much, given the number of no POST/failures that I have heard. At least 5 cases now.

 

This should only be true with Windows 7, not Windows 8.

The same with the performance difference. My horrid A4-powered HTPC with an ancient OCZ Agility 2 60gb SSD (UEFI - Win 8.1) boots faster than my 3630QM w/ Samsung 840 Pro 512gb. (Legacy - Win 8)

 

I am sticking to UEFI because I'm planning to use samsung migration software to clone hdd to my ssd. I am assuming the cloned ssd will be also GPT formatted and will only boot in UEFI

 

You can do it two ways. Either way will work. You can choose true Legacy (not UEFI) or UEFI with Legacy Option ROM. If your drives are not detected, you may need to use Diskpart and run a "clean" command on them in Secure Boot mode if they are recognized with UEFI Secure Boot. If you are trying to clone, then you may run into complications trying to switch everything around. Leave the BIOS set to RAID... don't use AHCI.

If you notice performance degradation after cloning HDD to SSD (not uncommon) you will want to do a proper clean OS installation. Use Diskpart to clean them again, and then set them up as MBR, not GPT disks.

As a matter of preference, I use true Legacy as shown in the first image, not UEFI with the Legacy Option ROM, but the 18 that I have will boot both ways without error running Windows 7 and Windows 8 in dual-boot with all disks in MBR format. I don't use GPT, so I don't know if the system would still successfully boot both ways using GPT.

 

I get a "message" while booting up the computer now :|

""Intel UNDI, PXE-2.0 (Build 083)
Copyright (C) 1997-2000 Intel Corporation

For Bigfoot PCIE Ethernet Controller v2.1.1.1(02/09/12)

CLIENT MAC ADDR: F0 1F AF 42 C0 A4 GUID: 44454C4C-5100-1058-8039-C2C04F535931
DHCP...""


After the dots there's a rotating thingy.

What does it mean? o_o Bigfoot is the name for the wireless card is it not?
I hope that it's not a huge problem..

 

CLIENT MAC ADDR usually means it can't locate the installation or that the drive isn't attached. If you switched from AHCI to RAID it may not be able to locate the installation due to the change and you have to use startup repair.

 

Your system is attempting to boot from LAN which means (a) your boot order has LAN before HDD in the BIOS; or (b) a bootable drive is not present. If you are able to load Windows after that appears, enter the BIOS, go to the Boot menu and move the Network boot option to the bottom of the list.

 

OK, that's good to know. I use MBR and it boots both ways but that might confuse someone that tries and has it fail if their drives are set up as GPT disks. Thanks for posting that.