Hi,

I have an alienware m17x r1 and it's time to replace the hard drives which are set up as a striped raid.

First question is how to make a proper clone of the drives?  I tried using windows 7 built in utility and some others, but they don't clone the hidden partition.

I thought I might use alien respawn because various docs say it can make a disk image of some sort, but my alienrespawn 2.0 doesn't have that option- only restore options.

Second question/option.  Let's say I want to pop in the new hard drives and reinstall windows instead.  It's been just over four years since I bought the computer and it might be nice to have a fresh install, plus I'd really like to get away from the raid system.  I have the windows activation code on the bottom of the computer, but what should I use as the installation files?  Is there some way to get the windows install files in the hidden partition onto a usb stick? 

Any information and/or insight would be much appreciated. I spent a long time browsing the web for answers but haven't had much luck finding the info I need.

Thanks,

Scot