Alienware M17x R4

Question

Hello, just got one of these from ebay, and was hoping to install windows XP on it. Actually hoping to install Windows 10/7/Vista/XP on this. Was able to achieve this but was having issues with Windows 7 that caused me to try and reinstall it, but messed up in the process. I don't remember if there was a specific order of install, or any of the exact bios settings that worked. But would appreciate any help from the people who have XP running on these old laptops.

LUMA99 · Accepted Answer

Looks like I have solved my issue. I think my main mistake was to use a different USB loader. For Windows XP, I had originally used WinSetupFromUSB to use to install XP. But my installs after the first one where on a USB stick using Ventoy. I did this so that I wouldn't have to need multiple USB sticks. Another important step I took was to install Windows Vista first (tho I suppose this can be done with other Windows versions) and used Disk Management split the drive into 2 different partitions. After that it should just be setting up the BIOS to legacy and ATA. Might be able to use AHCI but I'm good with ATA. Now I got all 4 operating systems on this one laptop. Will most likely use this as my linux laptop as well but I will look into using a USB stick.

crimsom · Answer

User mattyb3 has extensive experience upgrading these old Alienware M17x R4 (4/19/2012) laptops.

LUMA99 · Answer

A bit more background on this. I have installed 2 SSDs and 1 M-SATA. The M-SATA have it split to be shared between XP/Vista while 7/10 get their own drives. Like I said before, was able to make it kinda work and installed all the different windows versions. The only thing I can think that is different now is that I updated the BIOS to the latest version. Could it be that XP is picky about BIOS?

mattyb3 · Answer

Sorry, I have never tried installing XP on these laptops and I've also never heard of anyone else trying to do it so I'm no help here.