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Booting Alienware 15 R2 from M2, rather than HDD
is there a tried method to backup/restore my system from the HDD to the M2 stick and use the HDD as secondary disk?
At the moment i am also having Alien Respawn issues, the application is crashing everyitme i start it.
I am running Windows 10, which came with the unit.
Alienware - Rodrigo
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October 26th, 2015 08:00
Hi,
It depends on the size of the data that you want to backup on the M2 drive. The HDD usually contains a lot more space than the M2 drive. Have you tried reinstalling the Alien Respawn software? Click here for the download link.
os2lord
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October 26th, 2015 21:00
The M2 is 256GB, and the current c-drive is using 46GB.
Thanks for the reply, but i cant even get AlienREspawn to start, every time i launch it, it crashes, i''ve uninstalled and re-installed respawn, but same problem, i also downloaded a new version (thinking mine might be corrupt), but still the same problem, AlienRespawn simply crashes as soon as i launch it.
i've also attached an image of what my disk currently looks like, its a mess.......the disk "RAW" is the new M2 (256GB).
Arthur Ausili
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October 27th, 2015 01:00
You may be able to try cloning software from the manufacturer of the M.2 drive.
You could create a system image on a third storage device. Create a Windows boot disk if you don't have one. Remove the existing drive (temporarily so that the system doesn't see it as (C:)/ drive anymore). Use the Windows boot disk you created to recover your system image to the M.2 drive (the new (C:) drive). A little complicated but...
Alienware - Rodrigo
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4.4K Posts
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October 29th, 2015 11:00
Hi,
Try doing a clean boot and open the Alien Respawn software again. Click here to view a video that explains how to do a clean boot.
os2lord
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October 29th, 2015 15:00
When i turned on my laptop the other day alien respawn kicked off and said that it was performing an update. And once finished it is working now. I then proceeded to do a backup and that worked too it seems. When i tried to do a factory reset to default. It says it completed. And now my laptop wont boot windows 10 says that it is missing files. I will add some more information in the next 2 hrs. Need to get ready for work.
os2lord
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October 29th, 2015 17:00
At the moment I have put the laptop into legacy mode is now coming up with "Reboot and Select proper boot device or insert boot media...etc...", but there are 2 drives, one is the M2 and the other is the original Hitachi 1TB HDD.
os2lord
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October 29th, 2015 20:00
another update, I tried to recover the OS with a windows 10 recovery USB and after 2 hours of trying to recover it came back with: There was a problem recovering your PC..
Arthur Ausili
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October 29th, 2015 23:00
Can you get access to a bookable windows disk or flash media? Maybe burn one from another PC. Then you can recover.
Also, is your boot order set up correctly in BIOS? It's Hard to tell what data is being stored on which disk at this point.
os2lord
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October 30th, 2015 00:00
I finally got it working again, but I had to install a fresh copy of windows 10, this is what I have done.
Changed the bios from UEFI to Legacy
Made the M2 the first boot device
installed windows 10 (fresh)
reinserted the Hitachi HDD as the secondary and there were no recovery partitons on it, not sure how this happened.
What I need now, is the product key for Windows 10 and how do I find it, is it in Box it came with or on the packing slip?
where do I find all the alienware drivers, etc for windows 10?
os2lord
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October 30th, 2015 04:00
ok, sorry to be a pain, but i'm downloading all the driver, etc. as per my service tag.
so the only outstanding issue is windows 10 serial, if i can get a reply for this then all should be ok.
and i'll retry alien respawn again.
one other thing i noticed, which i am not sure and have not researched it yet, it may be M.2 related, but when i power on the laptop, windows 10 doesnt always load first go, i hold down the power button and press it again and windows 10 loads. has this ever been a known issue with M.2 cards in alienware laptops?
Arthur Ausili
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October 30th, 2015 05:00
Your not a pain. I'm not a Win 10 guy but have you tried the product key from a previous version of windows (the Win 8,1 COA on the bottom of your computer?
Secondly. There is a difference in bootable Win disks, installation disks and recovery disks. It sounds like you used an installation drive (which you can't boot directly from. When you get up and running it is a good idea to make a bootable disk for making repairs.
Thirdly. You cant have 2 "C:/'"drives running in your system. You can't rename the "C:/" drive. You can clone the primary disk to M.2 using software from the M.2 manufactures web-sight (weather it be Samsung, Kingston or whoever). Most SSD manufacturers have cloning/ migration software that works with their product. The manufacturer should be listed in Windows system information and in BIOS.
Sorry for your frustration. Been there. Maybe someone with more Win 10 knowledge can chime in.
os2lord
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November 2nd, 2015 04:00
Hi Arthur,
the laptop came pre-installed with Windows 10, it is the new Alienware M15 R2, and there is no windows COA label as such anywhere on the laptop. i checked inside the Alienware box too, but to no avail.
All i need is someone from Alienware or Dell to tell me how to fix this "Activate Windows" issue.
i'm not sure how i did it, but i think i corrupted the recovery partitions and this is what led me to install a fresh copy of Windows 10 and then download the Alienware drivers from the Dell site.
the laptop is fine now, everything is working, i have reattached the existing hard drive and made that my secondary drive for app, the primary drive is now the 256Gb M2 and is working like a charm and from windows startup to the login page is literally 4sec.