MediaDirect button ruined my day..

I fluffed up...big time.

For a few months now (since early April) i've been using my Dell Vostro 1700 with no problems.

I followed the "Dell Vista Laptop Reformat and Bloatware Removal Guide" and been a happy bunny ever since....until now.

The hard drive was partitioned with c:\ (vista) d:\ (general stuff, work, college work) e: (games)...but today, i mistakenly pressed the little house button (gf was talking, i was looking at her, and pressed without looking) which then proceeded to try and start mediadirect. I say try, as it blue screened...over and over again.

Anyway, i'm unable to boot into Vista anymore, and for some reason, c:\ is now a mediadirect drive, and vista has chuffed off to f:\

Luckily, i have a usb pen drive and managed to save my college work (i have 5 assignments to hand in tomorrow so i was nearly 'throw laptop through patio doors mode').

Is there anyway to unfluff my mistake, such as remove c and then change f back to c?

If it's not possible...any way to get rid of c: and f: without losing d: & e:?

I look forward to having a rescue plan for my numbness

 

Well, worst case scenario is reinstalling Vista onto the C:\ partition, right? That should let you keep everything else.

You can't boot up to Vista at all? Have you tried safe mode/does your BIOS let you decide which partition to boot from?

 

Thanks for the reply dtd00d.

Well, in theory..that sounds fine. How do i get get c and f partitions joined together to just make a c? Will vista do this for me?

As if i just try to install onto c in its current state, i think it will fail due to it only being a couple of gig in size?

Nope, tried to restart in safe mode - would only blue screen (different error to MediaDirect one, but BSOD nevertheless). I can't seem to find any mention of being able to boot from f: drive in the BIOS either

 

Oh dear...
Vista might be able to join the two partitions together, but you'd need to get into the Disk Management service.
Your best bet might be a flavor of Linux to do this for you, though I am no Linux expert. Someone else might be able to help you further from this idea, but I've heard of GParted and maybe you can look into that. I don't know much about it other than it might be able to do what you need.

You will probably have to repair/reinstall Vista onto C:, so perhaps you'd be better off just putting the recovery disc in.

One last idea would be to put the drive in an external enclosure and manage the disks from there, but that might involve money :/

That's all I've got for now, keep us posted on how things go and if I think of anything on the way I'll pipe in. Hopefully someone else can grace you with their wisdom, too.

 

This might work...Boot to a windows 98 boot disk and get into dos. From there use the command to delete the other partitions besides the C drive (well your windows partition i mean). Upon reboot there should only be one partition for it to boot from (your windows one.)

Even making the other partitions hidden might work instead of deleting them.

PS. Remove and delete media direct entirely.

 

OK...either i'm lucky...or i'm just lucky...

I did a system restore (somewhere where id not noticed before) from the Vista CD that came with the laptop...and rebooted...same error, but this time when i switched off, and then restarted using the Media button, it switched back to Vista and loaded...i did nearly poop myself when as soon as vista loaded MediaDirect popped up...

Have shutdown and restarted it a few times now to make sure...but it seems ok as long as i dont try and start using MediaDirect - which i can live without!

*phew* case closed, and thanks for the responses in my hour of madness/need....next step is to somehow disable that button from starting mediadirect

 

Ah the vista disk has automatic programs that can detect problems and automatically correct them which it must have.

 

Actually..all you needed to do (in most cases) was push the MediaDirect button again. It works more or less like a toggle if it doesn't startup right.

 

lol that's awesome, I'm glad everything worked. Perhaps you should try reprogramming your MediaDirect button to do something useful rather than crash I've read a few articles on how to do it.

 

Yeah, that what I thought... how did this go so horribly wrong lol?

I ve pressed the media direct button before without it being installed, all that happened was that it didnt load and the buttons seemed to have switched functions...

 

Pressing the button again was one of the few first things i tried...unfortunately it just kept blue screening no matter what.

All good now though...and here i am, typing away on my Vostro

No idea why it went so horribly wrong...i'm just good with computers, rofl.

 

Interesting. I installed vista business using MY dvd and Dell's number on my 1420 (that will be going back). It worked once then I pressed the media direct button and all vista would do is bluescreen.

Anyway, when I get my final 1420, I'm getting rid of media direct

 

Boot from the Vista install CD and click Repair when the option comes up. Then click the option for command line, and type in the following:

Code:

bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot

 

This is the only useful trick of what the guys posted here.

Despite all technical skills the others in this thread might have, they don't understand how media direct works and thus can't help. In fact their guides (bootrec /fixmbr, bootrec /fixboot) will destroy your data permantently.

If the trick with pushing MD button a second time DOES NOT WORK, there is only ONE TOOL that is able to recover your data. It's called
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

It's contained e.g. on GParted Live CD. Be sure to fully read and understand the intructions of testdisk.

Plan B here might also help you. Depends on your skills:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=4030519&postcount=26

 

I suggest simply reformatting the entire HD. Creating 3 partitions. First Partition 20gb for vista, second the rest of your space minus 2gb for the Third partition. Install on the First partition & media Direct on the third partition.

After that put the media direct disk in & go to the command prompt (c:\program files\system32\cmd.exe > right click & go in as admin)

type X:\dellkit\rmbr.exe DELL 1 3 (change X: to your optical drive letter)

If you do all that then you will be able to boot into Vista via the power button & Media Direct via the home button~

& yuh you will lose all data if you do this so it really doesn't help =/

 

I have found sometimes my vostro gets confused which button does what, and the main power button will power up media direct and vice versa (or not) and if i just force power off a few times and choose different buttons to turn on, it eventually goes back to how it should.

 

How exactly does the Media Direct button work?
Does the Media Direct button modify the MBR every time you boot to Media Direct, and change the MBR back when you exit Media Direct? Is this "feature" of being able to boot directly into Media Direct (without starting Windows) something that's built into the motherboard?

I've read that Dell's Media Direct 2.0 works differently from Media Direct 3.0 and instructions on dual booting Dell laptops that came with Media Direct 2.0 won't necessarily work with newer Dell laptops that were designed for Media Direct 3.0 and later. I think the instructions at http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/manual.htm are for backing up the MBR on a Dell laptop with Media Direct 2.0. Would they work with a Dell that has Media Direct 3.0 or later?