Inspiron E1505 Media Direct help

hi, I've read other threads about the media direct but I do not understand...
here is my situation, I just received my dell notebook and I used Western Digital Lifeguard tool to set up the drive, I deleted all the partitions, (I didn't pay attention if HPA was there.) so now media direct do not work.
I have tried media direct repair which didn't do anything

I tried media direct reinstallation, which gave me an error blue screen STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF9E4f528, 0xC0000034

my harddrive shows as 110.38 GB under computer management.(this is a 120 gb harddrive)

 

In order to repair or reinstall MD, you must have around 2000mb of unpartition space located at the end of your HDD. MD will use this space to boot up, but it can't be a partition or be part of your XP partition.

 

I don't even know if Media Direct is still in my system, gahh.
I tried the reinstallation of Media Direct which gives me the STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF9E4f528, 0xC0000034 error screen when I turn on notebook using the media direct button.
I tried repair using media repair which just boot up windows xp then load media center when I turn on notebook using the media direct button.

 

How do you have your HDD set up? Did you lump everything together in XP/spare partitions? I need to know if you left 2000mb of unpartition space before we can help you out.

 

I have 40000 mb for OS and the other 70000 something unpartitioned, when I tried to make 3 partitions 40 gig for os, 70 gig for storage and 2 gig for media direct. media direct is able to finish install but when I turn the notebook off then push the media direct button I get the STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF9E4f528, 0xC0000034 error

also it looks like the dell tech sent me an old version of media direct as I only see a single XPEI.exe file in CD root directory.

I was thinking, if it is still in the HPA then repair should have worked right? I used western digital datalife guard to set up the drive and I didn't pay attention if HPA was on the list....

 

Probably the HPA is still there. Is the 2gb in a partiiton? It needs to be unpartition space in order for it to work. Otherwise, you'll just get errors/splash screen.

 

the 2 gig is unpartioned so media direct installed but get that error when I use media direct.

if I do have the HPA, is it possible that the western digital wiped it clean so the media repair utility doesn't fix it? is there a way to put it back onto the HPA?

 

To southern Girl,

i have followed your instruction to repair media direct after reformatting my hard drive (cd/md2 etc etc). Then it rebooted to mediadirect properly as you said it should. after that it is not booting to windows anymore, after the first microsoft XP screen it stops giving a blue screen saying
"windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer. Plug and play detected an error most likely caused by a faulty driver.

.............................................

Technical information:
***STOP: 0x000000CA (0x00000001, ......................)"

So what do I do now ? I have everything in this laptop, please help.

Thanks in advance.

 

If you have the HPA or not, the reinstallation of MD should have fixed it. Do you have Dell's Quickset installed?

 

How do you have your partitions set up? Did you leave Partition 1?

 

if you reformatted you have nothing on your hard drive anymore.

 

yes I have installed intel chipset, video driver, quickset before installing media direct. my system is E1505. no clue what to do since it installed successfuly but error when using it.

hmm, I used prodiscover and see that all the files in the HPA are intact, how do I fix it? obviously the dell media direct fix doesn't work since I tried it like 10 times

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=1336496

That would be my guess as to what is going on.

 

just ran the media repair from the resource CD that came with the system, didn't work either... had no effect, boots straight into windows media center.

using the media center reinstallation disc is no help since it completes installation but doesn't work, gives me that stop message!!!

I want this to work
I decided to go with fresh copy since I can't modify the HPA so it can't play DIVX files.

 

The only other thing I know to tell you is to try using the long method. Mark wrote out the instructions here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=49086&page=2

I'll keep searching and see if i can find another solution

SG

 

I did that, followed the long method. didn't work...

 

Honestly, I don't know of any other tricks to do. You might check disk management and make sure that the 2gb isn't in a extended partition or anything funky like that.

I don't have MD on my laptop, so I haven't had a chance to experiment with it. If you really want it, you might try calling dell and requesting a new HDD.

 

Ok, I finally got it down. Freaking easy as 1,2,3
Downloaded the NEW version of media direct and install, DONE.
dell sent me the old version... and I can't get it to boot from HPA. grrr

but this works, just waste some 1.5 gig space, hope I can find how to delete the stupid HPA.

 

You downloaded MD? From where?

 

You can contact dell and request the latest version.

Please don't post any links to a downloadable version of MD on this site. NBR does not support piracy, and since dell does not have MD available for downloads, any links posted will be removed.

SG

 

Could have been more civil about that, its hardly piracy.

 

I reformatted only the C and E drive that came originally, but I didn't touch anything else. I did a clean installation of XP and loaded all the drivers, but MD was not working that time but everything else was working. And after repairing MD, it is working fine. Its only that my laptop is not booting into windows anymore. So after spending like 5 hours on phone with Dell, and taking apart all the parts listening to their instruction over phone............they could not solve the problem. So they are sending me a new Hard drive.

 

and you get to keep this current one?
or did they tell you to ship the current one back to them?