How to factory image my Alienware M17x R4

Hi Oim~,

There are 2 options to do a factory image restore:

(1) Keep tapping the F8 key at the Alienware head, recovery partition appears if the partition is not deleted.

You may also refer the below link for more information on this:

            http://dell.to/Wj1rZe

(2) You may refer the below link and create recovery disc for your future reference:

            http://dell.to/10uEd2h

If you have further questions do reply to the same post.

Hello Oimetra,

Kiran's suggestions are great, but if you want to restore the system back to factory settings, you can use AlienRespawn, check out this article:

How to use AlienRespawn 

Let us know how it goes :)

I tried F8, but factory image is not one of the options on the repair tools.

My laptop doesnt have AlienRespawn, it dissapeared when i turned on windows native recovery points (since i considered it was a total rip off that AlienRespawn said i had to pay for a full version if i wanted to have recovery points even tho windows already does  that).

I decided to go manual and do it myself, its good as new now. Altho i'm still considering if i should keep the partition or not, since it seems it can't be used anyway

Oim~

I have a similar problem. 

I managed to collect some virus/malware which messed up my admin rights and unable to run any newly downloaded exe, and whatever system change requires admin access rights I can not change. 

So, I decided to wipe off win7 and re-install it. (since my system restore points disappeared as well :S )

But, after inserting the Win 7 CD and started the installer, I get to the point where i have to choose which drive i want to install win7 i do not see any of my harddrives listed. 

I have a 64GB SSD cache drive and a 500GB drive, in Raid0 configuration , all pre built by alienware 

any suggestions? 

thanks

Mike

Thanks Natalia, 

I`ve been also suggested to just download the raid drivers, and have the loaded during Win7 Installer and that worked, i could see the HDD. 

Hello, I am experiencing exactly what you have been through and I want to know where you downloaded the raid drivers from? I can't find them anywyay nor do I know exactly what I'm looking for. Also did you copy them to a USB to run them in the Windows 7 recovery???

Hi Ducky, 

I have managed to sort this out, but was very tricky.. I have registered in other forums and someone there gave me the drivers, in a small ZIP file. 

Let me look up that forum, I can give you the link, I have detailed how exactly I managed to get everything back. 

Have really bad internet connection right now, bear with me.

There you go Ducky:

On this page you see at the bottom how I managed to revert back to factory settings (in the end there was no need for Win7 re-install , managed to get AR working) and you see the RAID drivers in Radji`s post at the top.

Hope it works out for you too!

forum.notebookreview.com/.../706551-ssd-format-question-3.html

Hi Ducky375,

This could also be useful, is the Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver:

IRST Driver 

Let us know how it goes. 

Thanks, loading the Raid drivers allowed the Windows 7 Installation to see my Hard drive in my Raid 0 setup along side my mSata Drive. I then proceeded to install onto my Hard Drive but it kept getting an error saying it could not create a partition or see an existing one!

For future solutions for anyone else that experiences the same problem as me the solution was:

Plug in the USB drive with the raid drivers on it ONLY when it asks for them, if the USB drive is plugged in when the system boots the Windows 7 installation will see the USB drive as another 'partition' and it gives the generic error i stated above. If I'm not clear enough I'll re explain.

I'm installing Windows 7 from my recovery DVD now thanks to those Raid drivers so thank you all! Save me a lot of trouble. Cheers all for help!