What Alienware Laptop Do I Have?

I really hope you can help me as I'm trying to fix my daughters boyfriends laptop.

It won't boot up as it states that some of the system files are missing, hence me attempting to re-install Windows XP.

I don't have any disks at all for this laptop, which isn't helping matters.

First...

The laptop has died and I'm attempting to find out what model it is as there's no wording anywhere on the laptop to help me.

Secondly...

I'm trying to install Windows XP but am getting nowhere as I a) don't know what the make of hard drive is and b) I don't know what SATA drivers to install and how to do it as the laptop doesn't have a floppy disk drive.

Can you offer any advice?

 

Have you tried going into the BIOS and seeing what it says?

If nothing else post a pic and the people here will probably recognize it.



EDIT:
Also the Hard drive does come out usually easily from most all laptops so you should be able to get the HDD info with just a small phillips head screwdriver.

 

Does the installation actually stop requiring you to install the AHCI drivers or are we just assuming they we need to install them?

 

In the BIOS under the boot order it states...

PCI SCSI : SATA378 TX2PLUS D0

I have no idea what drive that is?

 

AHCI drivers???

I don't know what that refers to, sorry.

 

I was actually talking about going into the BIOS themselves (not boot menu) to see what model the computer was. They generally all state what computer it is at the top.

But if you want an easy solution to getting an OS on the machine either install Windows 7 or an easy linux distro like Mint, ubuntu, or OpenSUSE. Any of those OS will get you up and running with minimal effort

 

Although they're not required, without the AHCI driver (Advanced Host controller interface, aka sata driver) the HDD will work in IDE133 mode. I would follow Kamin's suggestion about looking at the service tag or model name in the bios. If you wish to just skip the AHCI driver completely anyway, it should be selectable in the BIOS to force the SATA controller to work in IDE mode thus circumventing the need for the driver.

 

posting a picture will help speed up the process.

 

If you are unsure of these things i would suggest taking it to a pro for repairs. Not trying to insult in any way but your basic posts show you may need someone with a high level of knowledge in pc's.

 

I do not agree with you. He could be familiar with PC enough to format a hard drive and reinstall windows yet he lacks the knowledge to find out which PC he has therefore is not sure which drivers to download...

Nonetheless, please provide a picture or simply access the BIOS and you should have your answer shortly.

 

One idea is check on the bottem of the laptop the make tends to have a m. with numbers like m5550 m5500 m9750 .

 

10characters.

 

it will have a dvd or cd rom drive. insert a dvd or cd containing a version of the Windows XP operating system. you wont need to worry about either of those drivers as windows will install them for you.

it shouldn't matter which version of AW laptop it is, this is a basic re-install of an OS.

 

I'm experienced at re-installing Windows having gone through the process many times before so that's no problem for me.

I'm only confused about what model of Alienware laptop I'm working with and how to install windows onto a SATA hard drive as I've not done that before.

When installing Windows XP I can't get past it asking for the correct driver as it's asking for the driver on floppy disk.

I then get the blue screen of death and can't go any further.

What do you need a picture of, the exterior of the laptop and/or one of the BIOS screens?

 

Yep - go ahead and post a couple of pictures. Exterior, display open, bottom of the laptop would be fine.

 

Three pictures attached as per request...

 

Looks like you have the ALIENWARE Area-51 M7700 built off a Clevo motherboard. Got it from Googling Aleinware Model D9T as shown on the bottom of the laptop. From some of the reading I was doing and what I gathered, you need to disable your Card Reader in the BIOS and this may fix your problem as far as the driver installation issue. Give it a shot and see if it works. Then we can go from there. I'm just not to familiar with the model, sorry I can't be a bigger help. Also make sure you have the latest BIOS. Can probably be had from Sager or Eurostar or any of the other Clevo resellers.

Also, I was able to find this thread. May help, though I didn't read it much.

Cant get your CLEVO D900K to read SATA 300 drives? The answer is inside

 

You're very kind with your help. I don't know why I didn't see the details myself... put it down to old age.

I had read about using nLite to create a new Windows install disk. If I was to get the correct driver for the SATA drive would that work as I don't feel confident enough (or know how to) disable the card reader.

I've looked at the Clevo website for drivers but don't know which one I need.

I'm sorry to be a 'pain' with this but this is different from dealing with normal EIDE drives and I've not done this before.

I just want to help my daughters boyfriend out and this has now started to be a pride issue, plus I'd really like to learn more in the process.

 

To get into the BIOS just hit F2 when the computer starts up, than it should take you into the BIOS menu. You should be able to scroll using the arrows down to a menu, perhaps it says something like devices. Than use the spacebar to change from enabled to disabled, than save and exit. It's not difficult at all. Maybe there is a setting to change from ATA to something else. That may also help, but you can try it after disabling the card reader and trying the install.

I know what you mean by pride, I have a brother that works as a tech for google and so I like to work out a problem before he does just to throw it at him. He's a Mac user, I'm a PC user, and the whole sibling rivalry thing going on

 

I've disabled the card reader (strange idea... why?) and got further than last time.

This time after selecting to load Windows it states that it can't find any hard drive; does that mean the hard drive has failed?

If I select F6 at the start of the Windows install process it again asked for drivers on a floppy disk, which this computer doesn't have.

 

some times no hard drive found means it is formatted wrong.
And windows cannt see it. You could do what other poster said down load linux Ubuntu or Mint linux and click live run and go to GPARTED it can reformat any drive for free, but this might be hard if you have never used a linux. Maybe someone knows how he can do it easier

 

So if I use Linux Ubuntu to format the drive can I then install Windows XP back onto the laptop?

 

Yep.

Assuming the hard drive isnt bad and the source of all of your headache

 

If you can put Ubuntu Live on it then reformat drive to ( ntfs ) and like poster above said hard drive is ok yep should work..

 

I'll give it a go and let you know how I get on, thanks...

 

To be honest all you really need to do is use a slipstreamed XP image, from either SP1 it actually has all the SATA drivers there by default (no more f6 for sata drivers). I would go ahead and do that before you did anything else.

 

I've managed to get Ubuntu to load onto the laptop but now when attempting to load Windows XP Pro (with SP3) I'm still getting a message stating that it can't find any hard drives.

I think I'm going to give up and keep Ubuntu on the laptop as this is getting very silly.

I've never had this problem with any other 'normal' computer.

 

Tried this with a Windows XP Pro disk with SP2 on.

It states that it can't find any hard drives at all; yet I can load Ubuntu on to it?

 

XP has never had most SATA drivers built in. The least hassle way really is to use Windows 7 or Vista they both have the drivers in-built. Ubuntu works for the same reason 7 or Vista work it has the drivers required built in. XP is old now and it just doesnt have the SATA drivers required.
Three options:
1, Nlite the drivers into an XP disk
2, Put the drivers on a floppy and use an external USB floppy drive
3, Use Vista Or Windows 7

The drivers are here:
Promise Non-RAID Drivers
Promise RAID Drivers

You will need to select the correct drivers depending on whether you have two hard drives in RAID or have drives which arent in RAID.

 

I've tried Windows 7 and it's still asking me for extra drivers on a CD.

I suppose I'll have to try to find out what drivers I require. Not sure but I suppose it's the SATA drivers from Clevo as they made the motherboard?

If you know what drivers I require to put onto a CD I'd be very grateful.

 

Ah yes, I had that problem when I installed Xubuntu and then decided to go back to Windows XP. It was a real pain.

I had to download a disk formatting program as even DOS format won't work.

[Goes off and looks for 1.44MB diskette.. looking for USB floppy drive... gosh this is just like the old days]

who remembers 8" floppy drives... hmmm..

Ah, found it.

I used 'killdisk'.

It erases the whole disk. Like everything.

Then you can use fdisk and format to repair the disk.

That's what I did.

mine was an IDE HDD though but I see on the web site the application supports IDE / ATA / SATA / SCSI hard disk drives.

Active@ Kill Disk Hard Drive Eraser. Low Level Format.

Good luck.

 

You will most likely need a USB floppy drive and find the AHCI drivers, this is why it won't find the hard drive. If it were Vista or 7 I believe you can use a USB thumb drive or CD/DVD to supply drivers, but XP only looks for floppy.

 

As far as I know (and I know nothing about SATA drives) I need the SATA drivers; you mentioned AHCI drivers... now I'm even more confused than I was before.

I've got Windows 7 on disk but need the SATA drivers. So do I look for SATA drivers or AHCI drivers?

HELP...

 

How about opening the back of the notebook and have a look at what HDD you have in the device.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sata is always a good quick overview of SATA/ATA adapters

 

Sorry, maybe AHCI didn't exist then. You may just need SATA drivers, which is what I'd try first, and may be the same driver anyhow.

 

I've had to admit defeat (it's hurt my pride as well) attempting to put Windows on this computer.

I've tried XP and 7 with no luck.

Three days now... I've had enough!

Why make things easy when you can make them really, really difficult...

 

Somethings odd then, because Win7 should be able to go right on the machine (no preloaded drivers needed) expecially since you were able to get ubuntu to load on it

Might just be time to get an external enclousure and plug the hard drive onto another machine to see whats up. If nothing else you can reformat it that way and wipe everything to start from scratch.

 

Come on don't give up, you've only just got started.
Take a break, have a think and in a day or two have another go.
Opening the back of the notebook and having a peek at the HDD is easy.
Helps narrow down possible driver selection. As you haven't told us what disk it is yet.

Not like this, not like this - Matrix. :-(

 

Ditto what Batman said.

You can buy SATA/IDE to USB external connector for a few €.

Removing the HDD is not hurting anything as it's not doing anything in the notebook at the moment.

Thumbing on mobile phone so stumble a bit.

 

Dude why don't you just go download a copy of someone else' respawn disc and use it for reformating the harddrive?

I got a copy here for my m7700 D900T, does it make any different to grab any copy of respawn disc and burn it on the disc and install to that deadthing?

 

I hadn't heard of respawn disks before.

Do you (or anyone else) know where I can get a (free) copy of a respawn disk for an Alienware Clevo D900T?

I've searched through the Internet (and a few dodgy sites I know) and can't find one.

 

it's unlikely, but dell may be willing to provide you with one for a small fee + shipping.

 

I'm unemployed... ;(

I've now reached the stage where, using nLite, I've created a start-up disk (using RAID/SATA drivers from Clevo) and it's stating that it can't find any hard drives to install Windows to.

How can I format the hard drive when I can't access the DVD drive through DOS?

At the startup screen I'm seeing...

Error: no such partition.
grub rescue>

I had managed to insatll Linux Ubuntu and then formatted the drive hopefully to NTFS) using the Ubuntu disk.

 

If the AHCI drivers (RAID/SATA drivers) are present and it still does not detect the volume, it appears that the HDD controller may be partially damaged. I would visually inspect the HDD PCB board and attempt the freezer method to see if something happens. As I said previously, the AHCI/SATA driver is not required in order to format or use the HDD.

 

I've now managed to get Windows 7 to load, but only after getting the SATA drivers from Clevo.

So one last question...

The audio drivers on this laptop don't work under Windows 7 and I can't find any information about the card to attempt to update them.

The Device Manage only lists the sound card as 'High Definition Audio Device'.

 

Hi Richard

Look on the back of the laptop for the words CALLTAG. This is allows you to download drivers. If the call tag is missing than your laptop was probably built before Dell purchased Alienware. That purchase was in 2006.

To revert to factory settings Alienware has used various software over the years. The newest R2 uses Dell Data Safe which is on a partition and accessed via th taskbar. The R1 uses Alienware Respawn V.2 which is accessed by F10. Your computer is older and may have had disks called Respawn because it was an XP system. Maybe you can order those disks from Alienware.

Vista and Windows 7 are much more intelegent about finding hardware and locating generic drivers. I am not suprised that Windows 7 got you up and running and XP would not.

The problem is that this laptop is probably not a great match for windows 7. My previous laptop was vista compatible but when I upgraded from an XP to Vista operating system I found the sound card would not operate. After about 8 hours on the phone with dell I had to do a clean install of vista and than the sound card would work. Most of the drivers on that laptop are all custom built and that is why it is hard to get the sound card to work. I am sure there is a work around solution.

If you find a call tag than you can look up and see what operating system they have drivers for. I am just guessing but it may be easier to find drivers for vista rather than windows 7.

Also not sure if you did a clean install or an upgrade of windows 7. Clean install is the only way to go as it wipes out old drivers that could be causing conflicts.

Good luck

 

Hi Richard

I have found a possible solution for you. If you can figure out the exact model than you can purchase a rescue disk/driver disk from this company which will have windows 7 drivers installed. I personally have not used this company before but they do seem to offer what you are looking for. You can order XP, Vista, Windows 7 rescue disks but must have a basic operating system installed already.

Alienware Area-51 M7700 D90K Windows 7 Driver Restore Disk

They also have other rescue disks for other similar models. I am sure Alienware could look your model up by your serial number.

http://restore-disk.com/Alienware/Alienware-Restore-Disk-CD.html

 

Thanks guys...

 

edit it got posted like 3 days late

 

I've now solved the audio card problem.

Microsoft update service couldn't help so I installed Uniblue Power Suite which checks up on the computers performance, registry etc but also checks on drivers that might be out of date.

It told me there was an update available for the audio card, downloaded it for me and installed it.

I now have sound.

Good old Microsoft eh, even better Uniblue...

I'm now giving this laptop back to it's owner telling him I never want to see it again.