Alienware Respawn CD

Charles Kinbote

So my compy is mad fuxx0red, yo. Space issues, don't want Vista, odd behavior...it's not a lost cause, but it's not the whirring whiz-machine it was even a month ago. Now I don't actually have the XP discs or anything like that, but what I do have is this likkle Alienware "Respawn" CD that came with my machine, which supposedly sets the machine back to the way it came out of the factory.

Now I was wondering if any of you had any experience with this, because I'd hate to learn it was just a C: format for people who don't know what a hard drive is, or something like that. Does it install XP? Does it effectively wipe out all the data? How long abouts does it take? I have an 80 gig 7200 RPM hard drive, if that affects anything.

Thanks in advance.

japan

It seems it's just an image of the factory install. I would presume that it boots, wipes the drive, and copies the factory HD image onto your disk. In other words, the system is restored to exactly the state it was in when you first booted it up.

Have you tried e-mailing Alienware?

Charles Kinbote

japan wrote: »

It seems it's just an image of the factory install. I would presume that it boots, wipes the drive, and copies the factory HD image onto your disk. In other words, the system is restored to exactly the state it was in when you first booted it up.

Have you tried e-mailing Alienware?

Regarding what it does?

japan

Shankill Butcher wrote: »

japan wrote: »

It seems it's just an image of the factory install. I would presume that it boots, wipes the drive, and copies the factory HD image onto your disk. In other words, the system is restored to exactly the state it was in when you first booted it up.

Have you tried e-mailing Alienware?

Regarding what it does?

Yes. Though I suspect they may just copy/paste the relevant section of their website and send it to you.

EDIT: It sounds like a disc-based version of the recovery partitions that a lot of manufacturers put on their machines.

Charles Kinbote

japan wrote: »

Shankill Butcher wrote: »

japan wrote: »

It seems it's just an image of the factory install. I would presume that it boots, wipes the drive, and copies the factory HD image onto your disk. In other words, the system is restored to exactly the state it was in when you first booted it up.

Have you tried e-mailing Alienware?

Regarding what it does?

Yes. Though I suspect they may just copy/paste the relevant section of their website and send it to you.

EDIT: It sounds like a disc-based version of the recovery partitions that a lot of manufacturers put on their machines.

Well as long as it really does restore Compy 9000 to the way it was when I popped it out of the box back in October, that's exactly what I need. I'm just a little wary, because if it turned out to be a complete format or something (some manufacturers have different idea of "factory standard") I'd be OS-less.

nexuscrawler

If it's a disc image it will erase everything else

Charles Kinbote

nexuscrawler wrote: »

If it's a disc image it will erase everything else

Well, yeah, that's what I'm expecting. I just don't want it to erase everything...at all.

But that kinda confuses me, too. If it's CD, can't it only hold 600 mb? I'm very sure my compy came with more than 600mb of disc space taken.

Meh, whatever. I'm popping it in.

EDIT: Woop, nvm. A cd and a dvd. I see.

japan

I think the idea of a factory supplied CD that does nothing but format the OS drive would be enough to drive a good few tech support workers over the edge.

Seriously, pop it in, and it'll probaby explain what it's going to do before it does anything.

REd

The contents of the CD are compressed; they get extracted after everything is copied over onto the local disk.

And yeah, I used to work for an Alienware-authorized service center. Simply boot from the CD and it will run through a factory restore, which will *basically* bring your machine back to exactly the way it was when you first pulled it out of the box. For a couple of models, the restore disc is actually an XP cd, in which case you may have a separate drivers/apps disc to reinstall your hardware drivers and original factory-installed applications (such as your DVD codec.)

When the OS gets corrupted this is basically the quickest way to get it back up and running, rather than registry-spelunking. Just remember to back up your data before doing any of this because it will be lost.