Lost my ability to respawn on a m15x

My computer came with the option of pressing F10 to respawn the machine (Recover) and set it back to factory conditions. I did a regular format to install windows vista 64 but then decided to go back to factory conditions. the problem is, the option for pressing F10 to respawn is gone and I can check in storage management and the 8gb hidden partition is there, so the respawn data is still intact but I have no way to access it. all I want is for my machine to ask me to press F10 in boot again.

I found this post on another board which helps me. and I quote




"Yay! I was able to figure out a fix on my own. Luckily I didn't have to rely on AW tech support or I would have been left to drown.

So what happened was the MBR was overwritten with a new Vista installation, thus the BIOS shortcut to Alien Respawn v2.0 was not coming up and the link in Windows was gone.

I had to locate the Intel SATA hard drive drivers on their website and put them on a floppy. I had a USB floppy drive, they are such a relic these days.

I then booted off a Norton Ghost 10 CD, pressed F6 to load the SATA drivers. My thinking was maybe they used Ghost to do the image.

Once in Ghost I was disappointed but poked around the extra tools they included. One allowed me to change which partition was the active partition. I selected the 8gig respawn partition and rebooted into Alien Respawn v2.0. It just finished a successful recovery of the Windows partition back to factory conditions. I did have to boot off the Ghost 10 CD after the respawn and set the active partition back to the correct one. Everything is working properly and back to factory shipped condition!

Please keep this thread to help out other users who will most certainly run into this issue at some point with the new m15x hard drive only respawn."



end quote.

As you can see that guy had the same problem I did, he managed to get around it with no help from alienware. the thing is, he is a bit vague about geting the drivers for his hard drive. I also use a solid state drive on my M15x, so I dont think those drivers exactly apply to me. And even with that solution, I am not sure if I will get back the "press F10" option ever again.

Can anyone help me on how to get my computer to allow me to respawn it simply by pressing F10 again? Thanks

 

I'm personally not too sure how to get the F10 functionality to be restored, but this link might be particularly useful if you want to access that partition (and look through it) for any reason.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3jvx5AW8-I

I have a feeling you would have to edit the MBR somehow to get it to give you the option of booting off of the hidden partition. Perhaps someone here knows more about it?

There are a lot of useful links here-- but I'd look at them for reference only. I wouldn't make any rash actions yet.

 

Cool, thanks, I hope someone can give me some light on this. rewriting the MBR? whats that exactly

 

Master Boot Record. The master boot record contains the primary partition entries in its partition table. It also identifies where an operating system is located.

Don't quote me on this though since I'm as uncertain as you are on this, but I think the hidden partition may be working in the same way as a primary partition in the sense that you could "boot" into it. Booting into that hidden partition should take you to the Norton Ghost API-- which should then give you the option to respawn your m15x.

 

I replied to other thread with same question. Keep it single threaded, no multithreaded support here

It's realy gonna be complex and keep in mind that you may lost everything and end up reformatting from scratch. I guess Mystik or was it O' can share his views on how messy it could be to play with MBR

 

Here it is, Mystik's fun with MBR

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=4120138

 

Hey, yeah the multi thread thing was mainly because the other thread was about something different and I felt this might have been another issue altogether. Sorry bout that, anyways. I fixed it actualy, I used a norton ghost boot CD I had lying around here and I booted with that and changed the active partition to the hidden partition, once I did that and rebooted, it rebooted into the respawn thing and I respawned the machine and then booted again with norton ghost and changed the active partition back to the hard drive and everything works now, I even have the F10 for respawn option at boot again. But it seems problems never end! now I am being told by windows that NVCACHE is full, it is a 500mb partition and I honestly dont know what it does exactly. this wasnt happening before when I used my computer for a few days and now that I just respawned it I am getting this. the file inside NVCACHE is a file called ReadyBoost and it's almost 500mb big, which is why windows is telling me that its filling up.

Windows doesnt let me delete the file.

Thanks for your help guys

 

If there's an Intel Turbo Memory Console on your computer, open it, untick "Windows ReadyBoost" and then restart. This should essentially flush the NVCACHE and remove the "NVCACHE IS FULL" dialog box.

Once you re-tick Windows ReadyBoost after the restart, the NVCACHE drive (or file) should still be gone and you shouldn't see the annoying dialog again.

 

ok I wont bother you again, you've been great. thanks. I will do that and go to sleep. thanks!

 

Tell me if that fixes it for you because I can be up all night if you still need help.