Hi everyone, I have reinstalled the OS on my Dell Inspiron 1520 twice and twice the MediaDirect button destroyed my MBR. ONE PRESS OF A BUTTON! :( When I looked at the partitions I have noticed that new partition was created for MediaDirect and my XP partition was "Unpartitioned Space". I reinstalled the OS using their Vista recovery disk pressed the button and same thing happened. I had a look at the ways of disabling the button and downloaded their BIOS upgrade that states it will provide a greater MediaDirect control and I can not find a way to disable that button in the Bios.
So if anyone knows how to disable that that stupid button without me having to tear it out with a knife or a screwdriver, then please help! I'll be forever thankful!
This is a well know problem, in fact it's a very serious problem.
You need to remove the hidden partion that has MediaDirect on it. I recommend downloading the GParted LiveCD.
gparted.sourceforge.net![]()
There a lots of people experiencing the same problem. I'm in the process of researching how to avoid this problem as well. At this stage, I believe that after installing the OS, you have to boot with the MediaDirect CD/DVD, exit (however that works) into DOS mode, and then run the "rmbr" command to configure how the MediaDirect button works. The syntax of that command I believe is "rmbr <power button partition> <media direct partition>. So if you have only one partition after reinstalling, you need to do "rmbr 1 1", which would result in booting from partition 1 if you press either button. Don't take this as gospel though - as I said, I'm still getting to the bottom of this. There are lots of posts at forum.notebookreview.com - here are two:
forum.notebookreview.com...ead.php?t=182495![]()
forum.notebookreview.com...ead.php?t=183147![]()
Edit: This link also might help:
ubuntuforums.org/showthr...?t=606345&page=5![]()
Here is another really useful post, with a step-by-step guide to dual booting XP and Ubuntu:
forum.notebookreview.com...ead.php?t=231747![]()
From the Ubuntuforums site:
The answer is that MediaDirect hides a small chunk of boot code in a hidden partition called a "Host Protected Area" or HPA, which most partition editors (included gparted) cannot see or touch.
Wow...even GParted won't work, that's serious. Perhaps downloads a linux livecd and run the command they suggest.
Hi
I had trouble with media direct and MBRs also, this download from dell fixed it for me (Mediadirect repair utility)
supportapj.dell.com/supp...atid=-1&impid=-1![]()
Its a boot cd for windows containing code to fix the mbr, and it solved my problems, its only about 7mb, so i think its worth a shot.
Good Luck
My Vostro 1500 came with these partitions:
Partition 1: Primary, 86 MB FAT (EISA Configuration)
Partition 2: Primary, 146.46 GB NTFS (Windows XP SP2)
Partition 3: Extended
Partition 4: Logical, 2.50 GB FAT32 (MEDIADIRECT)
I want to dual-boot, so I thought I could split Partition 2 into maybe 3 primary partitions of 25/25/96.46 GB. Note however that you can only have a maximum of 4 PRIMARY partitions on a drive. So doing the above would result in 5 primary partitions. So either I delete the EISA configuration (not sure what it is really used for), or I have to put at least one of the new partitions in the Extended partition: For example:
Partition 1: Primary, 86 MB FAT (EISA Configuration)
Partition 2: Primary, 25 GB NTFS (Windows XP SP2)
Partition 3: Primary, 25 GB NTFS (Other OS)
Partition 4: Extended
Partition 5: Logical, 96.46 GB NTFS (DATA)
Partition 6: Logical, 2.50 GB FAT32 (MEDIADIRECT)
However, if what I read in that Ubuntu thread is correct, this won't work, since rmbr only allows partition numbers 1,2,3,4. In the factory setup, MediaDirect, since it is the only partition in the extended partition, is partition 4.
So, in short, if I want to keep the EISA configuration and MediaDirect, there is no way to do what I want to do, without MediaDirect mangling my partition table.
I have a new laptop drive coming on Wednesday, so what I think I am going to do is just partition it and install as follows:
Partition 1: Primary, 25 GB NTFS (Windows XP SP2)
Partition 2: Primary, 25 GB NTFS (Other OS)
Partition 3: Primary, 96.46 GB NTFS (Data)
and then boot with the MediaDirect DVD and run "rmbr 1 2" so that the power button boots Windows XP, and the media direct button boots "Other OS". We'll see if that works.
The answer is that MediaDirect hides a small chunk of boot code in a hidden partition called a "Host Protected Area" or HPA, which most partition editors (included gparted) cannot see or touch.
This is the way the old MediaDirect 2.x worked. MediaDirect 3.3, which comes with the newer Inspirons, Vostros etc, is installed in a normal extended partition. Normal partitioning programs will see it fine. I use Acronis Disk Director suite, but I had to boot it in "Safe Mode" for it to be able to see the disk - "Full Mode" could not see the disk.
Hi everyone, thank you for all those suggestions. I would love to remove MediaDirect altogether
and simply take control of my machine. It seems like it's not goi]ng to be easy. Another suggestion is to partition the hard drive again with that utility Kitchen Sink posted a link to, however, if it ruins this installation I don't know how I could handle that. And I likw the way Dell puts it :"Dell MediaDirect Repair Utility tool will restore Dell MediaDirect functionality after the system MBR gets corrupted through manual re-installation of the operating system." System does not get corrupted when you re-install operating system. I got rid off Vista in the first place because it was slow.
I'm sorry for the rant but I've waisted too much time on something that should not happen with a push of a button.
Once again, thanks guys! :)
Fly
Have you tried KitchenSink's link?
I would love to remove MediaDirect altogether
and simply take control of my machine.
In the same boat. I wasted couple of hours after pressing that damn button.
Hi
the program doesnt reformat your computer, it takes about 1 minute to run, and simply rewrites the mbr, no data is lost in the process, i had to use it on my laptop, when i manually reinstalled the OS (Inspiron 6400), it kept booting into dells recovery partition rather than my OS (real helpful that was)
its a simple matter of buring the included iso to cd, and typing something like mbr /fix at a command prompt, (check the instructions that come with the file, my memory could be slightly flaky as far as the exact command goes.
Good Luck