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    Facotry Restore question help appreciated

    Discussion in 'Alienware M11x' started by marstall92, Sep 28, 2010.

  1. marstall92

    marstall92 Newbie

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    so i recently received my m11xr2 in the mail and i installed all my programs on it never making a restore disk. so i decided i wanted it back to the way when i first turned it on so i ran the windows 7 disk that it came with thinking it that would do it only to find out that i know have the plan windows 7 os. how can i restore it to the factory settings
     
    marstall92, Sep 28, 2010
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  2. Mucchan

    Mucchan Notebook Geek

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    Hi,

    If you still have the recovery partition intact then you can just install DataSafe Local to do a factory restore.

    I found the link to the installer for DataSafe Local here:
    Where can I download Dell Datasafe Local Backup setup file? - Productivity Software Forum - Software & Operating Systems - Dell Community

    Specifically this link:
    http://dslbdownload.ddsupdate1.com/dsl_reinstall_download.html

    The website looks a little dodgy but I managed to reinstall DataSafe Local (sort of, it installed AlienRespawn instead) and restored my M11x to factory default using the installer I d/l ed from that page before.

    Alternatively, you can manually download and install the drivers, applications, images and themes that comes with the factory install onto your plain Windows 7 install. I think you'll be able to find guides regarding that in this forum if you do a search about it.
     
    Mucchan, Sep 29, 2010
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  3. Porter

    Porter Notebook Virtuoso

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    Mucchan, I downloaded the installer and half way through the install it stops with an error that says "Alienrespawn cannot be installed because your hard drive does not have a backup copy of your factory image".

    I have an 18 gb partition called "recovery", but I just noticed it is empty, guess that is my problem. Why did they put on a recovery partition, a lot of help that will be, lol.
     
    Porter, Sep 30, 2010
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  4. Mucchan

    Mucchan Notebook Geek

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    That's weird. The recovery partition should contain the factory image of your laptop. My recovery partition is 14.65 gb and it contains the factory image which is about 4.5 gb. DataSafe or AlienRespawn won't work without an image to restore to (as indicated in the error message)
     
    Mucchan, Sep 30, 2010
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  5. Porter

    Porter Notebook Virtuoso

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    Yeah I gave up and just blew away the partition, made one larger partition then reinstalled from scratch. I prefer to have a recovery partition to get up and running quicker but I can live without it I guess. For instance if ever had a problem when I’m on vacation or just out of town it would be nice to know I could get it up and running in a short while vs. carrying disks around with me and having to manually do the reinstall. Luckily I've never had that happen so I may never need to do it anyway.
     
    Porter, Sep 30, 2010
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