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    Got an Alienware 17 R3 from Dell Outlet, how to install Win10 onto SSD?

    Discussion in '2015+ Alienware 13 / 15 / 17' started by hellfire88, Feb 19, 2016.

  1. hellfire88

    hellfire88 Notebook Consultant

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    Hi All,

    I recently bought an Alienware 17 R3 from the Dell Outlet, and surprisingly like it (I never really considered a 17" gaming laptop before). It came with a 1TB HDD and 512GB SSD (Samsung PM951 NVMe PCIe 512GB). For some odd reason, Dell installed WIndows 10 Home on the 1TB HDD instead of the 512GB SSD. It came with this little Dell/Microsoft branded 8GB USB flash drive which I assumed was the reinstallation media.

    I booted from the 8GB USB flash drive and tried to look for the "Factory Restore" option so could not find it. I then did the "Reset My PC" but all it did was to reinstall Windows 10 on the 1TB HDD again! I took out the 1TB HDD as well but the "Reset My PC" just failed (can't find drive, etc.)

    Then I tried to boot into WIndows 10 (running on the 1TB HDD), do a system image backup onto an external 256GB SSD I had. Then boot into the USB flash drive again and tried the "Advanced -> System Image restore). It found the backup on the external 256GB SSD but won't give me the option to restore to the internal Samsung 512GB SSD!

    Can someone please point me in the right direction? I only really have like 1hr to tinker around nowadays after work, so don't want to spend too much time on this (would rather be enjoying the laptop running off of the SSD! Thank you in advance.
     
    hellfire88, Feb 19, 2016
    #1
  2. sirleeofroy

    sirleeofroy Notebook Evangelist

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    Congrats on your purchase!

    Firstly, I really wouldn't bother with the recovery. The stock install is flaky at best and I certainly wouldn't clone from the hard drive to the SSD.

    Your best bet is to create a USB stick using the Media Creation tool, see here:

    https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10

    Before trying to install, take a look at this thread:

    http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...up-your-samsung-950-pro-m-2-ssd-17-r3.787205/

    Once you've installed Windows 10, you can download the Alienware software from the dell site.

    I hop[e that helps :)
     
    sirleeofroy, Feb 20, 2016
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