I get that - although the number of configurations for an M11x is so limited that actually building an image would be viable.

The thing is though, I have the image - it's in the 16Gb of data on the recovery drive. What I'm saying is that without the Dell Datasafe Local tool, I can't extract it. But for whatever reason, there isn't a copy of the Datasafe Local tool to install - the support guy was as surprised as I was.

The problem could be easily resolved by having the tool available for download - that way Dell don't have to go to the expense of building another drive, and shipping it to me - the margin on the laptop itself is so slight that they've just blown their profit away because of this - the time in man hours alone spent on this obviates any profit on this particular machine.

Alternatively, they could use the Phoenix failsafe in the BIOS, but that's deactivated in my BIOS, and there's no way to activate it. Another item that the tech support agent was surprised at and told me he thought that would be corrected in a BIOS patch.

I totally agree and I freely admit that if I'd dug out the manual, and gone through it I'd have found that. But in my defense, Dell are one of the few OEMs that appear to still ship Windows media - the vast majority use a Recovery partition (like the Dell one) and on the first boot, and subsequent boots, inform you that you need to pay attention to that fact, and may need to create your own recovery discs from that partition. HP do that for example, and then charge you for a set of recovery discs if you lose them - so faced with a disc, that implies it's a recovery media, I stuck it in. I realized almost immediately that it wasn't what I was after, as soon as Windows setup azctually started and wasn't in anyway automated, but by then setup had already removed the Repair Your Computer option Dell have in there, and on every subsequent attempt to boot the machine informed me the boot sector was damaged. Given that, I had no recourse but to complete the setup, and hope that although it said "contains no drivers or programs" in itsy-bitsy text on the disc on minute inspection that it would have a means to rewrite the repair option, and allow me to uyse the "proper", as laid out in the manual, process for recovery.

On the other hand, Dell's support agents seem woefully unprepared for this device; it took me three attempts to talk to an agent after the first two couldn't find anything based on my service tag and express service code, that third individual was stumped as he thought (a) I should be able to download Datasafe and (b) failing that I should be able to use Phoenix Failsafe - neither of which were an option, and finally I have spent over 90 minutes on online chat, and on the telephone, trying to buy a second power adapter for the M11x, and even though I had the part number written on the original it took 4 agents before someone could find that part, and it took him 33 minutes to take my order. I'm hoping, really hoping that I caught Dell on a bad day, because as service goes, the experience was less than pleasent when I've just spent $1,200 on the laptop, and the level of support information is low - although there's plenty of information on how Datasafe Local doesn't work properly on the M11x and has issues with the Binary GFX system (with the fix information

I'm continuing to look, but to be honest, I'm loathe to do anything now that might corrupt the data in the recovery partition, so I'm going to have to wait for the replacement hard drive, but it still strikes me as vaguely silly that Datasafe Local isn't available for download, even if only at the request of a support agent, as I don't think I'm going to be unique in this problem (or maybe I am )

Just as a side note - the DVD actually says the following:

"The software included on this Recovery DVD-ROM was preinstalled on your hard drive at the factory and may only be used for backup and recovery of your Alienware computer system."

And page 84 onwards in the manual for Alienware M11x doesn't explicitly call out that the "Operating System Reinstallation Disc" won't restore a system to a usable condition. In fact, there's only one line that says "Contains operating system installation media", and in addition under System Applications on page 84 it says "Some of the software that is pre-installed on your computer does not include a backup CD/DVD. This software is available at My Dell Downloads (downloadstore.dell.com/media/)"

But Datasafe Local isn't available there for download - only Cyberlink Youcam and a number of different language versions of the Adobe Reader are.

So I think I can be forgiven for making the mistake I did given the lack of information, and conflicting information

Yes, it does seem that Dell jumped the shark with this one, which is a shame, as the potential for this machine is so high, even without a Core i(insert 3, 5 or 7 here dependant on how much spare cash you have floating around) to power the thing.

Anyway, just to update folks, I called Dell again yesterday, to discover, not to my surprise, that they had no record of my previous call with them, so no new hard drive had been sent out. I wasn't a happy bunny. Their attempts to remote connect to the machine using "Alien Contact" (or Cisco GoToMyPC as the rest of us mere mortals would know it as) were once again unsuccessful and they promised to email me a link to where I could download Datasafe Local. Needless to say, nothing yet.

Anyway, I decided nothing ventured nothing gained, and decided to dig around in the Recovery partition - after all, the worst I could do is screw that up as well and have to just reinstall and try to fix all the problems Dell have with this machine's software installation myself as you suggest bellyboy56. Lo and behold ... the recovery data is in a bog standard WIM file (Windows IMage) so in theory all I need to do now is create a WinRE (Windows Recovery Environment) boot disc, and let it pull the image off the D: drive. I'll let everyone know if it succeeds, but frankly, I am stunned and highly disappointed that the support technicians didn't know how the recovery information was held on the PC - the quality of their training really must be woefully inadequate, and I feel for them.

So, I'll let folks know - thanks for everyone's "advice" so far, and thanks bellyboy56 for commiserating - I'm sorry you've had problems as well.

Frankly, my advice for folks in the future is going to be to buy a Sony VAIO Z-series machine...

Hi sawaddi, yeah, I looked at that, the trouble is that reinstalling a generic (albeit Alienware branded) copy of Windows 7 nuked most of the options, and the Windows System Recovery tool refused to use the FACTORY.WIM file that was in the recovery partition, even when I removed the hidden attributes etc. from the partition. Options 1,2 you list above therefore didn't work, and there was no "System Repair" option during the Windows 7 setup when I tried that. Believe me - I wouldn't have gone to all the trouble with IMAGEX if I hadn't tried all of those options before

Now having said and done all of that, I've installed Acronis True Image Home 2010 and created an image of all the partitions on the machine so I can completely restore everything in the event of it being needed. Once bitten, twice shy and all that

Have you downloaded and installed the Windows Automated Installation Kit onto another machine as in (3) above? Unless you've done that, and copied the correct IMAGEX.EXE to the USB flash drive (see (4) & (5)) it won't work - also the drive letter given to your USB drive could well be different.

If you follow the instructions through, it should work okay, but as I said in the post, if you're in any doubt of your ability to do it, call Dell Customer Support and request a recovery disk or help in recovering the system - you don't want to mess around with this unless you're completely happy with everything I put in that post.

No, I never used Dell Local Datasafe - I actually wanted to, but by the time I'd reinstalled Windows 7 "clean" from the media Dell supplied it was too late - their media didn't come with Dell Local Datasafe, and this whole debacle actually started by me asking where I could download Local Datasafe from and no one being able to tell me .

So far as I can tell from the screenshot it looks like corruption on the harddrive - the Windows Boot Loader appears to be working - it's started to boot, but then it's unable to find the rest of the files to hand off to, or the file allocation table has become corrupted. I see two options: (1) If you created a set of Recovery Discs with Dell Local Datasafe, then use those to recover the machine - it's by far and away the easiest way, and I wish I'd done that to start with. (2) Follow the instructions in the post about how to restore if you don't.

One thing to mention, and I know it's sort of obvious, but any sort of recovery is going to mean you lose all your data from this machine. I would either (a) boot into WinRE from a Windows disc, and try to copy your data off the machine before restoring or (b) if you're feeling brave, you could take the HDD out of the M11x and plug it into another machine and copy the data off it - I'd suggest that as a last resort only, and you do it at your own risk, obviously

Sorry to hear you're having problems - whilst I adore the machine the whole recovery side of it sucks IMHO. I'd much rather the machine bugged me at every boot to create a set of recovery discs, then have to discover I don't have them when I need them most. Other major manufacturers (such as a two letter one that's around "G O" in the alphabet) do that, and when I see the prompts I make the discs, but I don't remember seeing that happen on the M11x I received.

@MATTCHAM, Wow! (Mark slaps his forehead) why didn't I just think of that? You're so right. But.... if you read the whole procedure, and you read the other replies you'll see that Dell, like HP, Toshiba, Sony, and just about every other Multi-National OEM don't supply factory image complete recovery media with their systems anymore. For some of them, where they have specific configurations, it's a revenue stream - if you want recovery media for HP you either specify it on the build, or you buy it afterwards. It'd be a similar story for Dell if that was an option. However, Dell have gone down what is arguably a good way of doing this, which is to put all the information on a hidden partition, and then let you use the Dell Datasafe Local application to create recovery discs of your exact system as it was when Dell built it. In addition, they provide a disc which is a clean copy of the OS (which incidentally is marked "Recovery" so that's probably what you've got). So, as I said in my post, I used an external drive, and I used the so-called "Recovery Media" - and all it is is a clean, unaltered copy of the Microsoft OS. What does that mean? It means (a) no drivers, you download them, (b) none of the utillities - you download. Or you could if they were available, but after spending three days talking to technical support, you know what? The Dell Datasafe Local tool, and others provided with it, such as Office 2010 Starter Edition, isn't available for download from their site, and when you use the clean "Recovery" disc, it removes the option in the Boot Manager for you to restore the image under "Repair Your Computer" which is the best way of doing it. I was more than willing to buy Recovery media, but it's not available for purchase. Want to know what the proposed solution was? To send me a new hard drive, with the factory image OS, and have me install it and return my hard drive with the clean OS on it. That sounds silly to me, as all I wanted was to return the machine to a factory state so I could use it for further demos, and then do the same again, and again, and again, and so on and so on and so on.

So, I found out how to restore it properly. Then I updated all the drivers. Then I created a set of proper recovery media. Then I used a third party tool to re-image the drive. I now have a system that is totally the way Dell expect it to be for when I might contact their support again in the future.

And you know what? After spending the thick end of $1,300 on a laptop, I don't expect not to be able to easily restore it. I admit I was an idiot for (a) not creating the recovery discs to start with and (b) for using a disc marked "Recovery" expecting it to be a "real" recovery like the one that came with my Dell XPS M1330 a few years ago was.

So yes, I could have done what you suggested, but I'm a perfectionist and wanted it exactly right. It's obvious that this isn't a preferred solution for you - that's fine, but please feel free to file the process away for future use - it should work on any OEMs system that uses the Microsoft IMAGEX tools to create their recovery media.

Sorry to hear this mate, and sorry that you've got the problem. The issue I had was that the Dell Datasafe Local capability was removed when I restored my system from the OS disc Dell provided - so the option on F8 wasn't available. The error code you have there suggests disc corruption to me, so you've hopefully contacted Dell support already. If not, the solution above may hopefully help you.