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    Easiest way to restore the stock installation

    Discussion in 'Alienware M11x' started by Jays0n, Mar 9, 2011.

  1. Jays0n

    Jays0n Notebook Enthusiast

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    G'day everyone!

    I am about to receive my m11x r2 tomorrow and would like to purchase either Seagate Momentus XT or a 60gb SSD (will hook my external usb for other stuff).

    2 Questions here:

    1. In terms of performance, is the SSD a sure choice?
    2. Would using norton ghost be sufficient to restore the stock/factory installation or would I need a fresh install of windows 7? Or would USB flashing + AlienRespawn be the way to go?

    Thank you!
     
    Jays0n, Mar 9, 2011
    #1
  2. BatBoy

    BatBoy Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    If you want a simple, fast process to restore the out of box state (the state of the system when you first depress the power button after unboxing), use AlienRespawn.

    Select the 'Create Recovery Media' option and follow the prompts. If you run into issues later, change out the drive for an aftermarket drive, etc., insert the rescue media and boot up the system. Follow the prompts to restore. ;)

    Done.

    Some will say this isn't appropriate in the case of migrating to an SSD and only a clean install of Windows should be done. Unless you are shooting for benchmarking the SSD, IMO, its not going to present any issues. Even with benchmarking being a goal, I don't see this as a real problem. You should be fine.

    Up to you of course.

    If you decide to go the route of a clean install, you still will have the rescue media created and can rest easy knowing its available in the event you have a problem with the drive.

    For clean installs, be sure to check out this thread for driver install order -

    http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...er-install-order-guide-alienware-systems.html



    Have fun.
     

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    BatBoy, Mar 9, 2011
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  3. Jays0n

    Jays0n Notebook Enthusiast

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    Thanks for your insightful and prompt reply, BatBoy.

    Yeah I am not at all concerned with benchmarking!

    Just to get things clear:

    It would be sufficient to create a recovery media using a USB, then boot the system off the USB and it will install itself on the new SSD/hybrid HDD?

    Thanks again!
     
    Jays0n, Mar 9, 2011
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  4. BatBoy

    BatBoy Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    BatBoy, Mar 9, 2011
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  5. Jays0n

    Jays0n Notebook Enthusiast

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    Too easy, thanks for that ;)


    Would still appreciate some input regarding SSD vs Hybrid on this machine.

    cheers.
     
    Jays0n, Mar 9, 2011
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  6. BatBoy

    BatBoy Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    No problem... Have fun.
     
    BatBoy, Mar 9, 2011
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  7. ChileanLlama

    ChileanLlama Notebook Enthusiast

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    If you're moving to an SSD, whilst not critical - but it will give you slightly better performance, the one thing you should try to do is get the partition alignment/offset optimised.

    There's no need to do a clean install of windows to achieve this, but you should check that you're imaging software can support it and/or allow you to manually set up your partitions with the correct alignment and restore to them.

    I found that my original HD wasn't aligned correctly, which is strange when Windows 7 normally does this automatically at install.
     
    ChileanLlama, Mar 9, 2011
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  8. mosaic

    mosaic Notebook Guru

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    I have a similar question. I have an SSD. I plan to backup my main C partition to an HDD this weekend, so I can reformat and remove the RECOVERY partition Alienware tacked on. Do I need to do anything special when I run the system restore to ensure the SSD remains aligned?
     
    mosaic, Mar 9, 2011
    #8