Carlen Cyphers

New Member
Joined
May 13, 2012
Messages
24
Hey guys I did a clean install of Windows 7 last night after Secure Erasing my two HD's using Parted Magic. I have an Alienware M14x R1...I have a SSD - Crucial M4 in the main bay and the stock HD replaced the optical drive...so two hard drives. However I have run into a few major problems:

1. I can't connect to the internet at all as my ethernet port, wireless card, network controller, pci bus - they all have yellow triangles next to them in Device Manager

2. Windows isn't recognzing my second Hard Drive even though it DID when I was installing - maybe its because I don;t have the drivers downloaded yet?

3. My Display Adapter is screwed up too - max resolution it lets me pick is 1024x768 when I have a 1600x900 screen - maybe drivers related again?

This clean install has been a major PITA, I am hesitant to do it anytime in the near future. Anyways, any help is greatly appreciated as I would rather not have to pay someone to fix this.

Thanks
 


If Windows 7 does not contain your drivers, you may have to install them yourself. Some of my devices will not install because they are new, but it sounds like some drivers are missing. I will unually install the lastest version of chipset drivers, and any I think might be more specific than any Windows 7 ones.

Once you install the basic drivers, Windows may update them, if it has not already.

An OEM install may be different that other Windows 7 installs, and I am not sure how having a hard drive where the Optical drive is might make a difference. Did you make any changes to the bios after swapping out the Optical drive?
 


If Windows 7 does not contain your drivers, you may have to install them yourself. Some of my devices will not install because they are new, but it sounds like some drivers are missing. I will unually install the lastest version of chipset drivers, and any I think might be more specific than any Windows 7 ones.

Once you install the basic drivers, Windows may update them, if it has not already.

An OEM install may be different that other Windows 7 installs, and I am not sure how having a hard drive where the Optical drive is might make a difference. Did you make any changes to the bios after swapping out the Optical drive?

I dont have internet connection...so how do I install drivers? There shouldn't be any problems with the HD in the optical drive I have been running it like that for over a year and never had issues....
 


If you don't have internet, you use a previous supplied driver CD, or you use another computer to download some.

It is not really normal for Windows 7 to not have some type of drivers to get most devices to work, but I have no other explanation.

Where did you get your install media?
 


If you don't have internet, you use a previous supplied driver CD, or you use another computer to download some.

It is not really normal for Windows 7 to not have some type of drivers to get most devices to work, but I have no other explanation.

Where did you get your install media?

Straight from Alienware (Dell)...I will try downloading drivers on a different computer
 


Alright so replacing the HD with the optical drive proved to be pointless as the optical drive kept ejecting the Windows Disk right as I put it in, I ended up just using my portable optical drive again. However, I finally have everything working. All I had to do was simply put all the drivers on a USB Drive from another computer and then put them on my computer -.-

So after much frustration I got everything good and ready to go (for the most part, still have to put HD in...). Well I guess it was a good learning experience haha
 


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