Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

Question

Win 7 didn't install after full reset

Mar 13, 2017 12:04AM PDT

I did a factory reset on my Alienware X51. Upon turning it back on, it gave me an error message that read "The computer restarted unexpectedly or encountered an unexpected error. Windows installation cannot proceed. To install Windows, click "OK" to restart the computer, and then restart the installation." The problem is, I can't get past this screen. It starts up, loads a minute, then pops this up. Restarting doesn't help and I continue to get this message. I have a Windows 7 recovery disk but I can't use it.

Is there anything I can do to fix this?

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Clarification Request
Why can't you use the recovery disk?
Mar 13, 2017 4:26AM PDT

I'd tackle that issue.

Usually you have restore media along with Alienware's own RESPAWN media to bring it to factory condition. Why can't you use the media?

- Collapse -
Because...
Mar 13, 2017 5:07AM PDT

I don't get to a point in the start up that will allow me to tell it to read a disk. It starts up and never gets further than the first minute of starting up before it says tk restart.

- Collapse -
Now it sounds like hardware failures.
Mar 13, 2017 5:28AM PDT

Time to guess if the optical drive has begun to fail. Try some other USB memory stick based OS like Linux to see if the machine can run from USB.

- Collapse -
Answer
Factory reset
Mar 13, 2017 1:24PM PDT

Did this reset come from some media you made or did it come from a partition on the hdd?