The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    MD 3 & Dianostic partition help.

    Discussion in 'Dell' started by 69cents, May 18, 2007.

  1. 69cents

    69cents Notebook Guru

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    53
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    Hi, Just woundering what is the minimum requirement for MD3 partition. And what does the dianostic partition do? Does it really worth installing? TQ.
     
    69cents, May 18, 2007
    #1
  2. kylerg

    kylerg Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    2
    Messages:
    240
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Where can we get MD3?
     
    kylerg, May 18, 2007
    #2
  3. 69cents

    69cents Notebook Guru

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    53
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    My cd came with my laptop. Maybe you can request from dell.
     
    69cents, May 20, 2007
    #3
  4. Amber

    Amber Notebook Prophet NBR Reviewer

    Reputations:
    1,659
    Messages:
    5,066
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    205
    The diagnostics partition basically runs a series of tests on your laptop to determine if there are any hardware problems. Sometimes, if you call Dell Tech Support, they will ask you to run through this test, but I have yet to see that happen. You can also run it from a disc, so it does not have to be installed. It only takes up about 40mb space - nothing that would be noticeable, so it pretty much is a personal choice as to whether you need to install it or not.

    As for MD 3.0, it only requires 2gb, and Dell Media Experience (if you have XP, not sure about Vista). It generally runs best with Cyberlink PowerDVD, but there have been a couple of other dvd decoders that have worked with it. M1210 use to come with a different dvd player and some users did complain that MD 3.0 gave problems with Cinemaplayer, so they switched to PowerDVD and had no trouble.

    Amber
     
    Amber, May 21, 2007
    #4
  5. 69cents

    69cents Notebook Guru

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    53
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    He thx for the rply. Btw, I only have the MD 3.0 cd, is that the Media Experience too?
     
    69cents, May 21, 2007
    #5
  6. Amber

    Amber Notebook Prophet NBR Reviewer

    Reputations:
    1,659
    Messages:
    5,066
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    205
    No, Media Experience is totally seperate disc. You can request it from Dell's tech support, and they will send it to you free of charge. If you plan on using Media Direct mainly outside of XP, then it is not required.

    Media Experience is basically Dell's solution to XP MCE for Home/Pro users, and is only required if you want to use Media Direct in windows. It is a simple interface that allows you to select listen to music, watch dvd, etc and you install as a normal program in XP.
     
    Amber, May 21, 2007
    #6
  7. robbirzell

    robbirzell Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    20
    Messages:
    132
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Vista has a built in DVD decoder. You don't need Media Experience or Power DVD to uses MD 3.0 in Vista.

    Woops - I just realized that your sig said you were now using XP sp2. You will need to get Power DVD or something similar.
     
    robbirzell, May 21, 2007
    #7
  8. 69cents

    69cents Notebook Guru

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    53
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    Btw is MD 3.0 compatible with XP Pro SP2?
     
    69cents, May 23, 2007
    #8