System Recovery, Alienrespawn and x32bias vs x27 on m15x

Hi everyone,

Had my m15x for about 6 months now, and as I'm still on holiday (not for long tho) was going to wipe the pc clean using the system recovery dvd alienware provides. I've been through this process every xmas time with my old pc altho that was running on xp...and was slightly less complicated.

Basically I want to take the pc back to how it was when I got it - but I'm not sure if I can use Alienrespawn or not. I didnt buy the cd when I bought the pc, nor did I burn an image of the hard drive when I got it (stupid move I know) - so I dont know if that will work - does anyone know?

If I cant It doesnt really matter - just go back to booting off the system recovery dvd and taking it from there, but was wondering if there is anything I need to watch out for with vista? Like the hidden partition - which although its taking up 9GB I'd quite like to put it back that way just because it came that way really...could anyone clear up why its there? I think I read a while ago something about system restore or something along those lines - but cant remember.

Whilst I'm doing all of this I thought I'd finally get round to looking into updating the bias - not that I'm having any problems with the x27 I'm running at the moment, but I was wondering if there was any advantage to the x32 instead of the x27. Read something somewhere that this could void the warantee so am a little bit weary of it, and as its all running fine atm I dont really want the hastle of changing it unless there are some good benefits to it.

Thanks,

Chris

 

The hidden partition on your hard drive is for AlienRespawn 2.0 for Vista. It is where the AlienRespawn software and the backup image is located. If you reinstall Vista, make sure you do not delete that partition. If you leave the hidden partition alone while you reinstall Vista, nothing will happen to it.

As far as the BIOS goes, I'm not too sure if I was around for X27 (so I can't really compare the two), but as far as it stands, the X32 BIOS is one of the best compared to the more updated versions (that is, unless you have the extreme processor, then you might want to consider going to X34).

You will not void your warranty flashing your BIOS as long as you know what you are doing. Your warranty will only be void if you flash the BIOS improperly and something gets damaged as a result.

Just make sure you follow the instructions carefully prior to flashing the BIOS.

 

i guess u can do a recovery by using the Alienrespawn on your hidden partition, u dont have to get a dvd to do that, there must be a hotkey to active the recovery process when u reboot your computer

 

Yeah. There should be a prompt telling you which button you need to press to restore back to factory settings when you boot up your notebook.

 

just press f12 when it says something about alienrespawn

 

Cheers...will try alien respawn tonight, saves so much hastle than using the system recovery dvd - well hopefully.
Thanks