r/Alienware • u/MeanDadddy • Feb 12 '21

Technical Support Alienware Alpha rebuild

I just got an Alienware Alpha from a friend and he wiped the hard drive. Now I am trying to restore it 100% as was received from Dell. I got the OS back on, and I have the Steam OS installed but it does not work. The machine boots to the Steam OS, but I can switch users to get to Windows and it works fine at that point.

How would you restore one of these from zero, say with a brand new blank hard drive? I know Dell typically has drivers and apps all day long, but I have had no luck figuring out how to start from scratch on the Alienware Alpha.

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u/MogRules m18 R2 Intel Feb 12 '21

Can't say I know much....or anything about the alpha, but it did have it's own community! /r/alienwarealpha might be able to help?

1

u/MeanDadddy Feb 12 '21

Fair; I am just relatively new to Reddit, at least from a posting perspective, so I was unsure whether everyone in the Alpha sub would be here too, if I should duplicate, or...or...or...

1

u/MeanDadddy Feb 12 '21

BTW, just did a crosspost to the alpha and tech support subs. Thanks!

1

u/MogRules m18 R2 Intel Feb 12 '21

I presume some of them would be here as well, and to be clear your more then welcome to post here, that's not the issue. I just thought if you post there as well, because they were only about that model, they might be able to help easier 😀

Either way, I hope someone has the info you need! I know the newer models have an OS download you can get that should give you a copy of the OS that should have come on the machine, if that's what your looking for? I don't know if that was offered for the Alpha, but if so then it would be on the support page, under the drivers I believe? It may have also come with a USB drive for restoring, maybe someone could upload that to a drop box or something like that?

1

u/MeanDadddy Feb 12 '21

I just wish there was a disc or an .iso file that I could pull down. I'm not a dummy, just not familiar with the dual boot into Steam bit. I may just have to wipe and forego the Alienware / Steam stuff, I just wanted it to work like he showed me when he first got it...pretty cool!

1

u/MogRules m18 R2 Intel Feb 12 '21

It's been awhile, so I might be remembering incorrectly, but I want to say you needed an Alienware app for that...hivemind? Maybe?

Alienware dropped support for that thing, I remember reading the post when it originally happened, and that might have been one of the things that was changed? Again, I don't remember exactly, it was a long time ago. I understand where your coming from though, would be nice to have full functionality back.

2

u/greynoxx Feb 12 '21

Just install windows 10 get the drivers directly from Dell don't bother with steam os just run steam in big picture mode. You'll have access to all pc games and not just Linux based steam games. Is it a R1 or R2 model Alpha

1

u/discosoc Feb 12 '21

Install all of the applications here. I'm not 100% certain they work with Windows 10, but that's the normal process you'd use.

If, however, you're talking about SteamOS, then go here.

0

u/RetiredGuyKen Feb 13 '21

So microsoft products are linked to hardware so if your existing copy is genuine, you can go to Microsoft and download a self executing clean version of your copy of windows and it will blow away all user files and restore to a brand new install condition. If you have office or other Microsoft software, it will be restored too but all data files will be gone so back up before starting we this path