MediaDirect 2.0 Overview

Awesome, I'll try installing with that tonight.

 

However, I don't think NBR is allowing linking to the file, though.

 

Yes that is correct. Its not that I don't want to help you guys, but you have to understand that Dell does not have that file available for download for a reason. Any links that are posted that contain the installation files are illegal, so all of installation links will be deleted if they are posted.

Besides, 9 times out of 10 you do not need the installation file. You should be able to repair it if you have the partitions set up correctly - although MediaDirect is a bit picky, so there is always an exception.

 

She is right:

First, the Repair should work.

Secondly, as far as I can tell, Dell loves to send discs out -- even ones you DON'T need. I asked for one and got five.

 

I installed MediaDirect and for the most part it works. It was able to find music on my hard drive with no problem and played a DVD as well. However I played the DVD and it was extremely loud. I lowered the volume to 0% and then muted it. It showed me this on the screen but it didn't actually change the volume. Nothing worked, has anyone else had this problem?

 

F8 + Delete during MD Start-up . . .

First, thanks to all on this board who put so much effort into clarifying the mysteries of Media Direct. Thanks!

For what it may be worth, I’d like to explain how I broke MD and how I fixed it with the help provided here.

Breaking Media Direct:
I have an E1505, and I wanted to recover the 4.6G of the Restore Partition (I had the MCE Install CD).

I read the posts about Dell's Restore Partition Removal Utility (C:\Dell\Utilities\DSR\DSRIRRemv2.exe).

I ran it, and it instantly increased my XP partition by the 4.64G. That was nice.

At first I thought Media Direct was still working, but it turned out that it wasn’t. If I remember right, from power off, it started, but would not play a DVD and no folder search was available for music & pics.

Fixing Media Direct:

First I ran the “Short Repair” found here. That made it worse. After display of the banner, I’d get a blank screen.

PtEdit32.exe showed my partition table as . . .

DE......00......0.......1.......1.......4.........254.....63........63........80262
07......80......5.......0.......1.......1023....254.....63........80325...114173955
00......00......0.......0.......0.......0.........0........0..........0…........0
00......00......0.......0.......0.......0.........0........0..........0…........0


So I waded through this thread some more, and came across the use of the F8 key when starting MD from power off. I did that and selected “Delete” and MD finally continued to start.

That solved all my Media Direct problems, including browsing for folders.

I was curious how the procedure might have affected my partition table so I ran PtEdit32.exe again. Surprisingly, it was exactly the same.

I hope this may be able to help someone in a similar circumstance. However, if it is seen as another red herring, go ahead and remove it.

BroHogan

 

Hi, just another brainer for you to work out:

I just got my XPS M1710 which I reformatted to get rid of bloatware. Before the reformat I called Dell Tech Support to ensure that I didn't make any errors, so the representative there walked me through the reformat process - telling me to delete all partitions and just turn all unpartitioned space into one main partition. As it turns out, bad, bad, bad advice.

I installed Windows and all drivers, but naturally, the MediaDirect application did not work. So I downloaded the application from the Dell website and burned it to a disk and ran the repair process. Which did absolutely nothing at all.

Then I called the tech support again, who told me to try the same procedure using my resource CD instead of the App from their website. Once again, bad, bad, bad advice.

After having run the repair process, when the computer rebooted all it did was give the following error message and refuse to boot into Windowes!

[XLDR] ATA error.

From there the only solution that worked was the reformat yet again. But during this I noticed something:

The XPS laptop originally came with 2 partitions -
one labelled (-) of about 48MB or something and one large one labelled (C). These I merged into one, following directions from tech support.

What had happened following the MediaDirect Repair process was that now my (C) partition had been labelled (-). So I reformatted and tried the procedure one more time (with the exception that this time i left about 3GB og unpartitioned space on the HDD) with exactly the same result.

What do I do? Tech support apparently cannot help me, so I really need some assistance!

My theory is this: I now create 2 partitions, and install XP on the SECOND partition, and then hopefully, the MediaDirect utility will only **** up the first of the partitions, and not the Windows one..?

Thanks a lot for your help..

 

Normally, if you create 3gb of unpartition space and then repair media direct it should work, but I wonder if that is only applicable to the Inspirons now. I'm not the media expert, so I'm going to let Mark handle this one. He has more experience with MediaDirect issues than I do.

 

If you want to do another Windows Reinstall, that method will work... First create the small 'place holder' partition [no particular size, just a few MB will do] then load Windows to a second partition. After your done, then run MediaDirect Repair.

Another option if you don't want to reload Windows is what I have termed as a MediaDirect 2.0 'Long Repair'. Depending on which version of the Repair utility you plan to use, take a look at the appropriate post in this thread

hth

Mark

 

i deleted all the paritions when i was reformating my e1705 so my media direct no longer works.

i reinstalled windows with about 2.5gig of space left over for MD. i reinstalled all the drivers, apps, etc but my MD still didnt work. i was redirected to this guide by southern girl and i followed the long repair instructions no luck. when i tried to boot up the laptop using the MD button, the lappie would go into the MD splash screen and would then go to a black screen reading "Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem...." (it was a pretty long message, i just copied the first few lines to google it to see if i can find out what it was)

am i doing anything wrong? any suggestions would be appreciated

 

I am trying to boot a hdd that has dell media direct on it. The error [XLDR] !ATA comes up, and I was wondering what I need to do in order to be able to boot into windows xp pro. I don't care about getting media direct to work or save it or anything, I just want to be able to boot into my Windows without reinstalling or anything like that.

Can anyone help me?

Thanks

 

Hi all,
I got a new dell E1405 notebook that has media direct. I need to make it dual-boot with Fedora5 and XP MCE while keeping MediaDirect function intact. The notebook has currently 3 visible primary partitions (visible from windows disk mgmt):
1st: ~ 39MB dell utility (FAT)
2nd: ~87GB C: Win XP MCE (NTFS)
3rd: ~4.6 GB Windows Restore (FAT32)
and it has 1 hidden partition (I believe) of size maybe 2GB for MD2.0. (I am yet to install PartitionMagic to check the 4th one and to delete the 3rd partition to reclaim 4.6 GB and to install linux to make the notebook as dual-boot). I have experience in making desktop systems dual-boot but i am hesitating here with the thing that I might harm MD2.0 functionality. My plan was to create an extended partition by deleting the 4.6GB Windows Restore partition and adding few GBs from 2nd partition, and installing linux there without harming HPA/MD partition; but linux might not boot from a logical drive within extended partition). Other way might be to install /boot into 1st partition, and "/" into the 3rd primary partition (on Dell Restore partition); but this might create complications. Also I need a drive to share between 2 OSs.

Could anybody please suggests a good solution to make this system dual-boot while keeping MD2.0 function intact?

I am sure people have tried this many times before. PLEASE HELP.

Thanks in advance.

 

Hi

I hope someone can help!

I have been following this thread very closely and have come up against some problems;

Scenario is this - restored from a Ghost image, booted into windows everything was fine. DM button would launch Dell Media Experience when I was in XP.

When the notebook was powered off and I pressed the DM button it owuld boot into windows;

Booted with the DM repair iso and ran the repair.bat utility.

After that - rebooted and the notebook came up with [XLDR] ATA!

Booted the notebook with a bootable USb key per instruction from the thread - ran PTEDIT and changed the rows.

Restarted the notebook into Windows, powered off and pressed the DM button only to get the following;

"Window could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem. Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware.Please check the Windows documentation about hardware disk configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information"

I really, really hop womone can help me with this

Stormies

 

Hi,

i deleted ALL partitions and reloaded a fresh copy of XP home sp2, then i ran the short repair and ptedit to changed the rows. I ended up with exactly the same message upon pressing the MD button...

"Window could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem. Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware.Please check the Windows documentation about hardware disk configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information"

When i changed the rows back.... i can use the MD button again but it turned on to DMX and then booted to window.

Anyone can help resloving this?

Thanks

 

I'm a bit confused.... As you say you've deleted all the partitions [esp the Dell Utility partition], you'll need to use the 'notes' for the correct/respective "Long Repair". But you mention doing a 'short' repair and using ptedit????

Not sure what you've been up to.....

Mark

 

Hi Mark,

Sorry for the confusion. It was a typo. I used the long-repair method as outlined in your post#11 in NBF.

Thanks

 

Hi All,

Received my new XPS about 1 week ago, really liked the media direct idea. Had a quick look but messed things up when I re-installed XP and Linux. I did not delete the recovery partition or the utility partition and im assuming the media direct partition on this machine is seperat to the recovery partiiton so I didnt delete that either ( because I couldnt see it obviously).

I have been reading these forums really closely and am considering my options before taking any action. If I decide to get MD working again does anyoe know if it can any partiitons other than C:?

Also does anyone know what file formats/codecs etc it supports? Will it play MP3/Ogg Vorbis/Flac/DivX etc?

If not I was looking at geexbox, dont know much about it but from what I have read it looks really good.

Also read dsd's post with excitement, any updates on this front dsd?

Cheers
Iain

 

Any takers?

 

As it sounds like you would be interested/capable of tweaking your MediaDirect installation, I'd opt for an accessible 'conventional' partition for a MediaDirect reinstallation and then you could tinker as desired from there.

fwiw

Mark

 

Hi MarkMcK,

1st of all thanks for replying to my post, much appreciated.

WRT to your post, you were unsure about one of my queries, I wasnt too clear on this so apologies for that.

What I meant to say was: Can Media Direct access all your windows partitions to search for multimedia files or can it only access the main windows C: partition? The reason I ask is because I have a D: partition which I use to store all my movies/pics etc. There would not be much point in this if MD cant read the other partitions.

 

Iain,

Hate to say but I don't know and as I don't have MediaDirect really 'working' anymore I can't test it to find out.

I have a vauge recollection that there was a post or two on that question, but heck if I can find it...

Maybe someone else????

Sorry to not be of more help...

Mark

 

It did not work with me, I created a new partition D: using partition magic and partition manager but MD wont detect it, it only detects C: windows partition and external hard drives. There maybe a way but no one has been able to give me an answer... So I will be waiting for MD3.0, it may detect other partitions...

 

Now that I've refreshed my 'memory' seems folks used the F8 key during the initial start up of MediaDirect to access a 'boot menu'....

System restart has been paused:

Continue with system restart [Default]
Delete restoration data and proceed to system boot menu

The non-Default [second option] is what some folks have used to get MediaDirect to 'refresh' where it is looking for multimedia files.

That said however.... mbushnaq00 is correct in that it doesn't appear to 'work' in some cases...

May be worth a try.... you never know.

Mark

 

Thanks guys,

I downloaded GeeXboX, seens better than MD with regard to how it can access other partitions and it only uses 8-16MB of HDD space.

I'll play about with MD and let you know how I get on.

BTW whats the best way to view the HPA?

Regards
Iain

 

I can't vouch for this but you may want to read up on Seagate DiscWizard utility. Just be careful....

Mark

 

Hey,

i want to erase (make clean) the HPA to install Dell Media Direct fresh from the CD. But in windows it hangs a 10%, in the startpost i read that then de HPA is full (yes because MD is there right now, half functioning)

So i can't read from the startpost how i clean the HPA to reinstall MD, XP home i just install yesterday and is full functioning, i don't want to reinstall XP.

Anyone an idea?

Rob

 

You don't really do anything with the HPA. What it sounds like is that you need to REPAIR MediaDirect and not a REINSTALL.

Did you reinstall Windows in the original partition?

Did you leave the Dell Utility [~40MB] partition alone?

Have you deleted/created any other partitions?

vr

Mark

 

Hi MarkMcK,

Just to let you know I managed to get media direct setup. Dell sent me the re-install CD for this, really easy to communicate with from my experience so that side of it went well.

Managed to get video/sound drivers installed as well as k-lite codec package so it also supports loads of ofther media like DiVX etc.

Im using the grub bootloader which I installed in the MBR. Easy to detect the re-install of Media Direct.

I used ProDiscover to see if I still had the HPA installed, it did see it but I coulnt access it to delete this, I googled and googled but it seems to be quite a complex task so I decided to leave it.

I tried many repairs but couldnt not get the HPA partition working, things are more flexable with the re-install CD anyways.

Thanks for all the help, your thread has been a real eye opener.

Regards
Iain

 

Jeps XP to C:

Jeps Dell 40mb unattached.

Yeps i resized the C an D partition to mine preferences.

So its working now but i want to upgrade to version 3, and i want to test reinstall of version 2 (before dvd 3 arrives) but the installation hangs at 10%

 

If you want to create a MediaDirect partition by doing a Reinstall, you'll need to somehow create the needed unallocated space [about 1.5GB] after any other partitions you have created.

Once you get the needed space, you'll run the Reinstall application/CD.

Mark

 

Is it possible to format or delete the HPA, or is that not the right way?

 

As it seems you are trying to get set up for MediaDirect 3.0, I really don't know what you need to do.... Depends on what the install instructions are for 3.0 [either it updates the existing HPA files/applications or it will create its own conventional partition].

Either way I don't think you'll need to format or delete the HPA

hth

Mark

 

hi there everyone, anyone out there have the mediadirect 2 installer or iso with them,can anyone pls post it so that people can get it here instead of ordering it from dell,it would really help a lot of people having this same problem of dell not providing the installation cd of media direct 2, i have an inspiron 6400 laptop, just bought it a couple of days ago but it does not have an os and mediadirect 2 the only thing it have is a cd for the drivers,which by the way does not have the md2 installer,so if anyone can really do me a favor here and let me download the md2 installer that would be a great deal to many

thanks guys

cheers

 

I read through all 14 pages of this thread and a couple of others. I see several references to an HPA and that one need only use a short repair to get Media Direct to work. My observations however seem to suggest that there is no such HPA on my E1505.

I resized my Windows MCE partition to try Linux. Then later I resized it back and restored Ghosted images of the utility partition and the restore partition. I tried using the MediaDirect Repair CD from the Dell website and it quietly boots me into Windows instead when I press the MediaDirect button. (The Ctrl-F11 key combination does not work either). Also, I have a 120 GB hard drive which is very close to what Windows reports (110.38 GB) when one takes into account the conversion from GB to GiB. Seems to me that there is no HPA at all!

I have requested a MediaDirect reinstallation DVD from Dell. Hopefully that should fix the problem.

 

Hard to say what has happened to your Partition Table after your partition work and restored 'Ghost' images. I'd look there to see what has happened. That may give you some clues as to why MD 2.0 won't start.

For a quick review you need your 'main' C partition to be listed 2nd in the Partition Table and your Dell Boot code needs to be 'restored' [MD Repair].

hth

Mark

 

I am not sure if it is ok to post links to downloads here, but I just uploaded an ISO of my Dell MediaDirect Repair Utility CD. Good luck to those that need it. Link here

 

Very informative posts...
I recently bought dell inspiron, tried lot of things after reading this forum.

I would personally recommend Media Direct as it saves your battery power- esp useful when you are in travel..

I also installed the codecs for divx using the information given here:
http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=164182&page=1

Media Direct is some version of embedded windows (it may be being used in some handheld devices)

Then an Idea struck to me. If I can install the codecs, then why not install a full player like vlc player???

And guess what - I installed it and it works perfectly!!
The problem with the video player in Media Direct is that we cannot 'seek' the videos - I found it for avi files..VLC player overcomes this problem..