Thursday, September 5, 2013

How to Reinstall AlienWare Respawn and use Existing Recovery partition

The Background:

I have been an AlienWare fan for quite awhile now...that loyalty is going downhill since Dell took over. It used to be that when AlienWare sent you a machine, you got FULL recovery (as in OOTB setup) discs.  Dell stopped doing that a few years ago.  Silly me didn't notice - at least not in time.

So imagine my surprise when I realize, after reinstalling Windows 7 Pro, that I not only didn't have the entire set of drivers and software packages on the provided Resource CD, but I couldn't build recovery discs even though the partition was intact and I could launch the AlienRespawn utility.  Because I'd done the install the way I did, I still had the Alienware Respawn software on the hard drive.  I had not made my recovery CDs from Alienware Respawn, at least not for this desktop. I was a "good girl" and did it for my M11x, so I tried to make a bootable USB drive off of that laptop and then copy my desktops recovery partition. No that was not successful, it would start but the BCD didn't jive with a few other files that I didn't have on hand but Alienware Respawn seems to create on the fly.

After much digging, and many internet searches I took a chance on what may/may not be a Dell-owned site, but I found the file I needed (which I later found on my M11x as well).

The Fix:


As long as your recovery partition is intact you will be able to make yourself a set of recovery disks or bootable USB/UFD (take your pick of term) and restore your system back to the original configuration. Some other posts say this will only work on laptops, but it worked just fine for my Aurora R2 desktop.

Step by Step:

  1. Go to this site: AlienRespawn - The Heros! and download the AlienRespawn_Basic.exe file.
  2. If you're not 100% certain about your machine's current configuration I suggest running the "Easy Step 1" on the right side of the page. Just to be certain that your machine can run the respawn utility.
  3. Launch the AlienRespawn_Basic program. Follow the prompts. I went with almost all the defaults except for the Emergency Backup option - I included my "Downloads" folder so I didn't lose some of my work already done (like downloading FireFox and Kaspersky, in addition the respawn program).
  4. Don't panic when it starts in on the recovery partition configuration. Mine was left intact, it didn't reformat or overwrite any of the files on that partition.
  5. When the install is done you'll need to reboot.
  6. AlienRespawn should show up in your All Programs list, go ahead and launch it.
  7. The main screen may tell you that you need to create your recovery disks (it will be in red), pick your choice of discs or USB. 
    • If you choose USB, make sure you have at least a 16GB stick around that you can afford to have reformatted and lose all data that's on it.
  8. I used the USB option and it only took me an hour to restore my machine back to OOTB settings.  (I still recommend making DVDs though as you may forget and overwrite your USB stick.
  9. Once the recovery set is done you can restart your machine, hit F12 to pick your boot device and start the restore process.  (The F8 option won't work here as the AlienRespawn option is not listed.)
  10. When the restore is done, you'll have to set it up for it's first use, just like you did when you first got it.
  11. Finally, do the Toy Story Woody "I did it! I did it!" happy dance.

And if you're like me and your machine had to be reimaged due to kids installing things they shouldn't and getting a PITA trojan, you will lock your rig down tight and not allow any kids near it ever again (especially teens!).

Big shoutout to the folks behind the AlienRespawn site, you saved my sanity (because I couldn't possibly be beaten by a stupid recovery partiion, but was too lazy to hack the .wim to get it to work with just WinPE).