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Alienware 17 R3 Recovery Drive Creation Fails and Recovery Questions
Hello,
I have a brand new Alienware 17 R3, but am unable to create the Recovery Drive for Windows 10. My previous Alienware systems had AlienRespawn installed, and used this for creating recovery media. This new one does not have this software, and just has the Microsoft Provided Windows 10 utility. However, every time I run it, it will fail and say that it is unable to create the drive. How do I create recovery media for my new system?
When I tried to manually copy the Recovery folder to a USB drive, the copy fails when it tries to copy a file called EFI which is a symbolic link to what I presume is the EFI partition on the drive. The folder contains a text file with the results of creating the recovery environment (called FactoryImage.txt located in the OEM folder) which contains the following text. Note the warning:
/-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------/
2015-11-26 02:43:31 Start factory imaging.
2015-11-26 02:43:31 System is in UEFI mode.
2015-11-26 02:43:31 System disk is: 0
2015-11-26 02:43:31 Drive letter for OS partition is: C:\\
2015-11-26 02:43:31 Total space required for the recovery partition is: 852 MB.
2015-11-26 02:43:31 INFO: Drive identifier for ESP partition is: E:\
2015-11-26 02:43:31 INFO: Drive letter for DELLSUPPORT partition could not be identified.
2015-11-26 02:43:31 INFO: Created the OEM Recovery directory: C:\\Recovery\OEM
2015-11-26 02:43:31 Start: Dism /Capture-Image /ImageFile:C:\\FacImg\install.wim /CaptureDir:C:\\ /Name:"Factory image" /ConfigFile:C:\\FacImg\wimscript.ini
2015-11-26 02:47:32 Created the initial factory image successfully.
2015-11-26 02:47:32 INFO: Size of install.wim is: 12030784468
2015-11-26 02:47:32 Warning: Image of Dell EFI directory failed.
2015-11-26 02:47:32 INFO: There is no DELLSUPPORT partition
2015-11-26 02:47:32 Info: Created the diskpart script file: C:\\FacImg\dps.txt
2015-11-26 02:47:37 Info: New partition created.
2015-11-26 02:47:37 INFO: Created the WinRE directory: M:\recovery\windowsre
2015-11-26 02:47:38 Removed the recycler directory.
2015-11-26 02:47:38 INFO: Registered the recovery directory with the OS.
2015-11-26 02:47:38 INFO: Recovery partition created successfully.
2015-11-26 02:47:39 INFO: Created the image of the ESP partition successfully: C:\\Recovery\OEM\EFI.wim
2015-11-26 02:47:39 INFO: Created the Image directory: N:\Image
2015-11-26 02:48:39 INFO: Split the factory image to the image directory.
2015-11-26 02:48:39 INFO: Added the restore tool with the OS WinRE menu.
2015-11-26 02:48:41 Deleted image file: C:\\FacImg\install.wim
2015-11-26 02:48:41 INFO: Wrote the diskpart.txt file to C:\\Recovery\OEM
2015-11-26 02:48:41 INFO: Wrote the ResetConfig.xml file to C:\\Recovery\OEM
/-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------/
I am not sure, but all of this may be related. Thanks!
Rich S.
eternalkp
314 Posts
1
December 15th, 2015 06:00
i installed alienware respawn since my 17 r3 did not come with respawn too. i backed the os into the thumdrive. i am not sure why the recovery takes only 881mb. seems not right because i know windows 10 takes up at least 15gb.
alienrespawn is so annoying in windows 10, 17 r3. it always takes up a lot of ram and cpu in the background. i uninstalled it because it's so annoying.
i tried to download the OS recovery thumb media from alienware website without any success. i asked for this forum help. Alienware Rodriguez dude private message me and basically tell me to buy one from alienware.
Alienware quality seems to decline.
CJJacobs
49 Posts
0
January 6th, 2016 01:00
The thumbdrive that Alienware provides is a bone stock version of Windows. There are no drivers or Alienware software preloaded with it. I learned this the hard way after the wrong SSD was sent with my 17 R3 build. The correct drive was later sent but it was a bare drive. A thumb drive was then sent and it was nothing but stock Windows. I had to download all the drivers, etc. from the Alienware site. My laptop has had nothing but issues every since.
eternalkp
314 Posts
0
January 6th, 2016 09:00
what kind of issues? i was thinking of selling the stock PM951 256gb SSD Alienware provided and buy a Samsung 950 pro 512gb as a boot drive.
mcinturf
26 Posts
0
January 6th, 2016 09:00
Hi LinkRS. I had the same problem as you. Apparently Respawn doesnt work well for Win 10 and Dell backup and recovery, whcih replaced it I hear, isnt installed on my machine. Using the Win took fails. I was able to do a back up using the win 7,8 backup under Win 10, but who knows how reliable that will be. Somebody responded to a similar post i made that may be helpful.
en.community.dell.com/.../19667172