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    Alienware 15 R3 Windows clean install on Samsung 960 Pro SSD

    Discussion in '2015+ Alienware 13 / 15 / 17' started by Woodking, Jul 4, 2017.

  1. Woodking

    Woodking Notebook Evangelist

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    Hi All

    Just ordered an Alienware 15 R3 with the following spec - due to arrive here in a couple of weeks,

    Nvidia 1060
    1TB HDD
    8GB Ram
    15" 60hz IPS Screen
    i7 7700 CPU.

    I intend to replace the HDD straight away with a Samsung 960 Pro 512GB SSd I was able to buy with some Amazon vouchers and upgrade the Ram in the near future. I'll be using the machine for some light gaming and some video and photo editing with the 1TB HDD for storage and the SSD for the OS.

    I've got the OS recovery USB coming with the machine, so looking to do a complete clean install on the SSD then format and add the HDD once complete. Has anyone else done this? From reading many pages on the forum it looks like I have to turn RAID off and leave UEFI on, then hopefully the drive gets spotted withing BIOS and Windows will be able to be installed on it.

    I was thinking about booting the machine up the first time I get it, still with the HDD installed and just doing a BIOS update in case that allows more compatibility with the SDD.

    I'd appreciate any pointers that may help, I did try and search for this but couldn't find any guide or any postings where someone else has done this.

    Many thanks :)
     
    Woodking, Jul 4, 2017
    #1
  2. InvoluntorySoul

    InvoluntorySoul Notebook Consultant

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    leave raid on, when you installing windows you need to load the raid driver, bios has nothing to do with this. Some windows install has raid drivers preloaded and some don't
     
    InvoluntorySoul, Jul 4, 2017
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    Woodking likes this.
  3. Woodking

    Woodking Notebook Evangelist

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    Ok I'll try that then, thanks. The reinstallation media is coming from Dell on a USB drive and as the AW15R3 model has some other NVME drives in the range I'm hoping they will have included the drivers on there already.

    Hopefully the machine ships soon, its been in 'Production' for days now and I want to get my hands on it!
     
    Woodking, Jul 5, 2017
    #3
  4. 1Coopgt

    1Coopgt Notebook Consultant

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    How did you make out with this? I bought the same drive and am struggling to figure out how to get it set up as the OS Drive .
     
    1Coopgt, Sep 5, 2017
    #4
  5. ganzonomy

    ganzonomy Notebook Deity

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    I wound up having to do the initial boot with the stock NVMe drive in, then format my 2TB drive in the 2nd bay of my 13R3. Then I took out the original drive, and with Phoenix's super clean Windows setup, I went ahead and installed a fresh win10homex64 on my laptop. Runs like a clock. I think the laptop wants to format it, or something with Dell's image of windows prevents the 960 pros from playing nice.
     
    ganzonomy, Sep 8, 2017
    #5