Resurrecting a Alienware M7700 (D700t)

OK guys, after years of pretty much working on ThinkPads and Dells, I'm about to get neck deep in the world of Alienware. I've already gotten waist deep by picking up an old Clevo D74v for my son that I'm rebuilding and painting, but I found a "for parts" M7700 to work on for myself last week. So, while I'm waiting impatiently for this thing to show up, I've been accumulating some of the missing parts like A/C adapter, RAM, and HDD. Which leads me to the information part and the forum. I've been able to find out the specs, types of parts and even a disassembly diagram, but I've been unsuccessful in trying to find the Respawn disks for it. And after a couple of emails with no answers, I've come to the conclusion that Alienware/Dell doesn't have or want to sell them to me. The question then would be, where to I find them? Ebay hasn't been any help either. Plus I keep reading that I'll need to get a USB floppy and find the Promise HDD controller drivers as well. Is that accurate, or can I just cold-boot right into an XPP OS disk like I do with other computers? Any help would be greatly appreciated. AND I'm open to comments/questions as well. THX

I agree with you, hosting the images on a publicly accessible storage would definitely be some sort of copyright violation. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm willing to bet on it. I'm a moderator on another forum that has a very large and active membership and you see people sell them regularly. And then those of us who know each other pretty well will often "trade" copies of the various restore disks as long as we feel certain that the person we're working with actually owns that machine (at the time) and has a legal right to own the disks. Although that's nibbling around the edges a little, but since the license for the OS actually goes with the machine that it was originally purchased for by the manufacturer, having a "correct" copy for that model shouldn't be an issue.

Maybe I'll have some luck posting a "LF" in the Marketplace. I'm not certain what the call would be for them on this forum, but I have a number of restore images of ThinkPads of the T/R Series and Dell, Latitudes of the D Series I could trade.

It showed up today, in an enormous box. Lucky for me, the power supply arrived already and battery arrived at the same time, so it's complete with the exception of the HDD, drive caddy and connector cable. There were some tense moments when it powered on to a black screen, but then I realized that I wasn't giving the BIOS enough time to fire up. Meanwhile I had connected it to an external monitor just in case the screen was bad and/or the Fn+F7 video output switch was set wrong. Second time out, it came up AND the external monitor displayed as well; so that was awesome! The Promise RAID driver request fired up as expected, then the "No Operating System" line came up just as they should. I put a Vista disk in the drive and that spun up and I got the Vista load background screen, but it ended up being stuck there, so I shut it down. The main issue so far is the it doesn't seem to be answering the keyboard which is suspect since it half coming out of the case and therefore I haven't been able to get into the BIOS yet. All in all though, I'm pretty happy with a for "Part or Repair" machine. Its of course scuffed up some and missing screws and rubber feet, but otherwise in decent shape. Now my decision is, how much is too much more to invest in it. I could the missing caddy/cable-connector and go ahead and take my chances to get it running. Or my other option is another for repair machine that I've found locally for $150 which is complete AND comes with the mythical Respawn disks! I suppose I could take the best of both machines, put together one, and sell of the left over machine/parts to get my money back. What do you guys think?

That sound's like the best solution: I just hate to have more money tied up at the moment though. So its a matter of how committed I'm going to be at the moment. Found the KB issue though, AND in all likelihood of why it's not booting up every time. I pulled the keyboard and the ribbon cable just came free! The snap-in white bar is missing! So, it probably isn't passing POST every time causing it to not only not allow me into BIOS, but not booting at all on occasion! It'll be like Shrek, and I'll have to peel it away; layer-by-layer.

OK; here's where I'm at on the M7700. Right now, despite getting the locking bar for the keyboard ribbon cable and having that secured, the machine is refusing ot POST and get into the BIOS screen, so apparently the KB wasn't the issue. I was able to get into it enough to know that apparenlty the screen is OK and that the board powers up. However, I'm still getting the "black screen" after pushing the power button. Eventually, the fans do start up, but nothing further happens after that. I haven't pulled the video card sub-assembly to check that since I don't have any Alienware parts (unlike the boxes of ThinkPad stuff laying around). So, at this point, I'm trying to decide whether its worthwhile for me to go on and put more money into this project, or to just get my money out of it by selling it for parts. On one hand, its very interesting and a refreshing departure from the usual ThinkPads and Dells. On the other, I'm a teacher and father of young kids so have to balance my hobby with fiscal reality! Personally, I'm not experienced enough with AW to look at the symptoms and make an educated call. I do have a line on a complete M7700 here locally that I can get for $150, but the guy says that it doesn't power up consistently, so it sounds like it has the same issue. Therefore, I'm definitely open for thoughts from others who are more familar with AW.

 

Well; after messing around with the M7700 some more, I do have some progress to report. I can get the boot screen some times after the fans start up, but its inconsistent. Actually, I gave it a try and got nowhere, so I "pounded" on it a little bit, but just lightly and magically, the went into the regular POST screen AND even allowed me to get into the BIOS. Then I put in an XPP disk and got it to get to the stage of load where it seeks the drives and of course found nothing. Next step was putting in a "Live" Ubuntu disk which got hung, BUT after a break and some more button pushing, I've got an Ubuntu desktop!

 

 

 

Replying to my own post? You bet! ....when you are typing the "reply" on the project machine that's running Ubuntu live and on the Internet with it!