New Dell MediaDirect

Can someone give me the email for requesting the discs? I tried chat support and they kept telling me the part number DN293 is not in their system. Thanks.

 

How new is thenew media direct? My m1210 is coming in a few days, I ordered it October 30th, should it have md3 on it?

 

Non of the m1210's came with that option,but you may want to check in bios for it.

 

Did anyone that got the MD3 disk originally have a lappy with MD2 on it, i was on chat and they say that they can not send it to me because it was not originally on my system which i recieved in late sept. and what exactly does the instant office do?

 

By that ^^^ I assume you mean that no version of Quick Set on m1210 supports the option to configure what application is called when the MD button is pressed while windows is running.

Secondly, Have you installed MD3, if so then contribute by answering the questions that I posted.

Router-Dude

 

I'm waiting on a disc to see if it is MD3. In the meantime I am going to try to remove the HPA partition. I found the following thread that points to utilities that can supposedly reveal the hpa partition. Oh and here is also a link to the hpa.exe utility that was mentioned. I will probably use that one first myself. Obviously I am backing up the OS partition in case the drive gets hosed in the process.

Thread about removing hpa partition...
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=72929

Link to site containing hpa.exe...
http://www.dmares.com/maresware/freesoftware.htm

Hope these links are useful for those wanting that space back and are going to install MD3. Probably should have the MD3 disc already in hand or else MD2 will not work.

EDIT: Odd... I found a site that has the total number of sectors for the drive (234,441,648) and that is exactly what all the programs tell me. I would say that there is no hpa partition except that pressing the Media Direct button still gives me this ghost partition...

EDIT: I still don't know where that partition is coming from. Looks like some sort of overlay on the drive. There probably isn't going to be a way to cleanly remove it. Whatever it is it isn't HPA. Is the bios editing the partition with the MediaDirect key being pressed beyond just switching the active partition? I also found that while it was stuck this way none of the utilities that I mentioned above was able to detect the drive at all. Anyways, maybe the prep program with MD3 will get rid of it?

 

From the Dell site:

Dell Exclusive: MediaDirectTM featuring Instant OfficeTM : Access your calendar, contacts, and presentations faster without starting Windows - a Dell exclusive! Dell MediaDirectTM also puts your videos, music and photos at your fingertips. MediaDirect will work with content stored on the hard drive, optical drive, a USB key or the integrated 5-in-1 media card reader. Dell's major notebook competitors "instant on" solutions don't provide this level of "instant office" functionality, flexibility and ease of usability.

 

I can tell from your sector count that you have a 120GB drive. Does Windows Disk Manager show the Drive as ~111.7 GB? If so then it is not a DCO or an HPA.

If it does show ~111.7, tell me what the partition table in Windows Disk Manager looks like.

Do you have System restore (Meaning you have actually used it, or at least accessed it), Don't presume you do.

Router-Dude

 

No. This odd partition is appearing when I press Media Direct but only after it crashes can I confirm about it. However pressing it again reverts the changes. I went and checked out Disk Management in Windows and I get 111.79GB as the disk size. I used System Restore once so that I could image the drive as it was at factory (although I realize now that this backup probably won't get it to factory anymore). When I reformatted the drive though for a clean install of XP I just left the recovery partition and both Media Direct and System Restore partitions went bye bye.

Attached is a screen shot of what Disk Management shows me. There is the 47MB Diagnostics, Followed by a 109.74GB XP partition, Followed by 2.01GB of unpartitioned space for when I reinstall MD2.

Also the partition table _does_ change. Posted the normal listing followed by the listing that shows after a failed Media Direct bootup.

Listing follows (from ptedit which is part of Partition Magic)...

Normal bootup...
<pre>
DE..00..0.....1..1..5.....254..63..63.........96327 <---- 47MB
07..80..6.....0..1..1023..254..63..96390......212989770 <---- 101.56GB
</pre>

After a failed Media Direct bootup...
<pre>
0C..80..1023..0..1..1023..254..63..220508253..4192902 <---- 2047MB (the ghost partition starts @ 105GB mark?)
07..00..6.....0..1..1023..254..63..96390......212989770 <---- 101.56GB
</pre>

For the "ghost" partition. Does that sound like the right starting point?

However as I am typing this apparently pushing the end of the xp partition up before the estimated starting point of the MediaDirect partition may of corrected this. At least to a point. Now if I load up Partition Magic in dos it doesn't give any errors after doing Media Direct. Tried to delete this "ghost" partiton but it came back so I am working on it still.

 

What i meant with my answer is that m1210's do not have an option to change their behavior in quick set,on the other hand there are some limited options in the bios.

And secondly, i have recieved a fresh md 3.0 cd but have not installed it.

 

Okay I think I know the answer to this, but I thought I should check the assumption.

I just received my replacement M1710 and got rid of all partitions other than the diagnostic and then tried to repair install MD 2. Seems that a system that comes with MD 3 cannot roll back to MD 2. When I try to boot into the OS independent MD 2, I get a BSOD ... so my question is has anyone tried to setup MD 2 on a system that came with MD 3? I hope this makes sense.

 

Note to self. Be very careful when working with the Media Direct version of the partition table. Good think that I backed up the MBR and Track 0 using MBRTool and backed up my XP install using Symantec Ghost. For the longest time I was seemingly stuck at the Media Direct version of the table. Then it was completely expunged so there was nothing there. Then I re-entered it and made the formatted partiton that was formerly Media Direct bootable (win98 anyways) and checked. Now both buttons did the same thing. Ok. There is progress... Then I restored the MBR and Track 0. Now it locks up at the Media Direct splash screen (the first one) and I get a black screen. Then I did a FIXMBR and FIXBOOT on the XP repair disc. Got the splash screen then a BSOD. 0x00000024 was the error and it said something was wrong with NTFS.SYS. So now I am restoring my backup image that I made earlier.

EDIT: My track 0 backup was from before it got stuck on the Media Direct partition. Also when I ran the repair it got stuck saying it was loading PBR 1 and failed there because it wasn't bootable. At that point both the power button and the Media Direct button started pointing at the same partition...

EDIT: Looks like I got them both to boot my normal install of Windows XP. Media Direct is completely expunged from my system. The difference? The Media Direct will cause Windows XP to load Media Center once I have logged in where as the power button just boots up without Media Center being loaded at all.

 

How much space is actually needed? I left 1310 MB but it failed.

 

I would recommend leaving 2-3GB for MD3.

 

I called Dell last night and they told me that the E1405 does not offer Media Direct 3 yet and that they would not send me any disk until it does. In other words, until they start shipping the new E1405 with MD3, I'm SOL.

 

I may be incorrect but I *think* that an e1405 is a MXC061. Here is a list of directories (not all but the ones that seem machine specific) on the root of the MD3 install DVD:
MM061
MP061
MXC061
MXC062
MXG061
MXP061

Secondly, if you go to the Dell e1405 page it shows that it IS shipping with the MD3 (that is the one with Instant Office). http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/inspn_e1405?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn (Scroll down until you see "Dell Exclusive: MediaDirectTM featuring Instant Office")

I think that you have fallen prey to the all too familiar incompetent Dell support.

Router-Dude

 

Ok so Last thursday I was notified that I would reiceive Media Direct 3.0 in a few days. Today I opend the package and there were 3 cd's(same ones that came with my E1505 purchase) so I then called and was on the phone for about 2 hours going back and forth between people. I finally got put on hold for the 5th time and just hung up. I personally think these reps have 0-not alot of common sence. I was transfered several times wich just made me more and more angry. Somtimes wen I call dell it seems like the women/man on the other end has a gun to his/her head or somthing, or it just seems like im speeking with a computer. All in all im complaining via email now, (sent them the part#) I hope this helps me.

 

can anyone confirm the MD3 disc order number? i'm having a heck of a time trying to get it sent via online chat. the first person i chat to sends me off to technical support, the 2nd guy claims that i need to talk to sales and i get directed to sales, and now the sales guy says that the MD3 cds aren't out yet. i claimed that other people have recieved their cds, and told him that the part number was DN293 but he claimed that was media direct experience.

i told him to send it to me anyhow seeing that it couldnt hurt, and i needed to upgrade the MD Experience software anyhow

 

So just to confirm my impression - if a system comes with MD 3, there is no way to replace it with 2.0 (at least from a repair perspective)?

 

FYI I just got my second e1505/6400 and it came with the MediaDirect 3 reinstallation Cd. The Part number for it is: DP/N OMN331 I saw another one in this thread but this is the one that came with my system and I just reinstalled it and its working fine.

 

Done with Dell. I give up. I reckon sending out a MediaDirect 2 disk for reinstallation on a system that came with MediaDirect 3 preloaded on it is comparable to sending out Windows Millenium for a OS reinstallation disk! I have spent over 300 minutes on the phone to them trying to obtain the correct CD ( I am from Canada)That and I have had my system for 3 weeks and have not been called from my ISP I selected either DONE, DONE, DONE.

 

1. What laptop model?
XPS m1210
2. BIOS?
A04
3. OS?
XP MCE w/SP2
4. Did you Install Media Experience (DMX)?
No
5. What does pressing the MD button while in normal OS do?
Starts Media Center

 

internal dell part# for m/d 3.1 shipping today!
is KH664 KIT, SOFTWARE, DELL MEDIA DIRECT, ZANZIBAR, WEST
hope this helps
jim
Grrr Dells indian techs are such a pain in the ..... sorry folks this is M/D2 but it is version 3.1 of M/D2

 

grr... the dell representative gave me the dell media experience 3.1 rather than the media direct cd. she actually sent me every cd under the sun for the e1705 but still no media direct 3.0 i guess i should just wait for this one....

 

update: finally got 3.1 md DVD commin my way i ended up with 3 different m/d 2 disks and 3 media experience disks and 2 xp pro disks jeeze

 

I finally got it but I thought you could access MS Word stuff as well. Maybe in an update. Not really a difference for me.

 

So I don't have to read through 18 pages, if I install Vista RTM on an Inspiron e1505, does MediaDirect get deleted? Thanks...

 

LOL. Didn't Dell spend something like $300 million to upgrade their CS?
Did they use the money to buy more comfortable chairs?

 

I used Acronis Home 9 to back up and restore my system, and I too had a black screen and was frustrated. So I pulled the battery, plugged it in to power, started MD, then pulled the power during restart. Then plugged the power back in and restarted MD. YEAH all is good!!!!!!!!!!!

 

media direct 3.0 will not work on vista rtm atleast from a clean install standpoint
jim

 

yeah, I just experienced that myself. thought I could just put my vista image back to the cdrive that was formatted by media direct 3. vista won't boot until you do a repair from the installation dvd. but when you are in vista and try to continue the md3 installation it tells you that the hd has not been prepared. with a partition manager everything looks perfect though. this has to do with the partition table again. vista puts itself in first position and it should be in second or some other order. this was the case with xp and md2 after formatting a hd. I am going to play with a parition table editor a little before I start from scratch and go the upgrade route from xp. I don't like that.
there are probably other ways also, unpacking the md3 files and manually copying them to the md3 partition, then either use a bootmanager or other trick to boot either vista or md3.

 

I thought about trying to get the new disk, but unless it's pre-installed, is MD3 really worth the hassle? Seems to me it's just as easy to open XP as MD to get to office. Same goes for music, pictures and videos for that matter...

 

Sorry if I'm posting this on the wrong thread, but Dell's homepage is failing me to give accurate information on MediaDirect.

I'm planning on either buying a Sony Vaio VGN-SZ440 or a Dell XPS M1210. MediaDirect may just be the thing to get me to decide which.

Questions:
1. Is MediaDirect able to read from: Memory Stick/SD/etc, HDD windows partition and CD/DVDs?
2. Can you play DVDs using MediaDirect?
3. Which codecs are supported?
4. Is there a considerable difference in power saving, or does it sucks as much power as if you were running the notebook on normal windows operations?

Guess that's it. I was planning on buying a portable DVD player with LCD to watch movies while traveling, but if MediaDirect works like I think it does, I won't need too.

 

10 Days ago i received my new M1210. Until this post came out i did not even opened MD . Yesterday i took a look and i saw that i have MD3 installed.
It has instant office included. Yes you can do everything with it without booting.Yes you can read from other devices but i did not saw anywhere a file transfer option .Maybe i must do an update . There is an update option through xp . The partition is 2 GB on mine .

 

Hello everybody

It has been one week i am trying to install MD.

I have XPS M1210 first generation (Core duo T2500, 1Go Ram, Nvidia Go7400 256 Mo, Bios A07).

I install first unsuccesfully MD 2.0 with my dell-windows XP Media Center but when i press media direct button it opens media center even if i have installed DMX software (configurated for launching firefox).

And now I have installed Windows XP SP2 with media Direct 3.0:
1st step Media direct (Dos mode option 1)
2nd step Windows and drivers
3rd step Media Direct (widows mode)

Then I split my windows partition (one for my data and the other for my os) and it is working perfectly.
My media Direct button is now launching firefox when I press it

I am trying to solve divx problem with media direct

 

What problem are you having? I use divx with it all tihe time.

Let me quess...you got it installed but it tears and looks blocky???

 

Yes it is exactly my problem and i install my codec by using taskmanager trick....

HOw are you doing ??

 

In fact it is not the same i have only a black screen and it is not playing my divx..

 

Just realized you posted you installed the correct way.
Try this:

Start a MediaDirect boot with the MD button.
Once it is booted, shutdown the laptop by holding down the MD button, NOT by choosing exit.

What this does is force shut the OS thereby causing it NOT to hibernate. You want this.

Boot MediaDirect again. it will be like the first time you started it, and will take longer than usual. What it is doing is integrating the codec like a restart of Windows would do.

Then it should work.

As a side note, I can play Divx fine, but did not use a Divx installer. I installed instead the K-lite codec pack instead. This lets me play virtually any file from within MD.

 

I install them with satsuki codec installation per haps it is my mistgake but where i must put my codec???

 

You don't put it anywhere really. As long as it says the installation went fine when you did the tskmgr.exe trick, it should work.

Try the reset method above.

 

Can you please elaborate on your procedure? I am trying to use XP Media Center with MediaDirect 3 and unsuccesful. I first used MD3 CD and used option 1 (all space to one C drive). Then I installed Windows OS and drivers. When MD3 disk is inserted in Windows OS mode to finish install (per your instructions), I get an error message: Application has failed to start because application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem." I am not the only one with this issue. see the Dell forum link here When manually forced to install by going through Explore and running Setup from WindowsMD3 directory on the CD, installation completes succesfully, but after reboot, I get an error message when booting to windows: NTLDR is missing, press any key to restart." Has ANYONE found a solution to this?
Your instuctions (as well as Dell's) work perfectly on Vista, but not on XP Pro... Why not? Anyone? Thanks in advance!

 

Nevermind. Issue resolved...

All i had to do after installation of XP was open the MediaDirect 3 DVD and run Dellkit.exe. That ignores the Autorun error message and succesfully installs MD3 on XP. Simple.

So the steps are:
1. Prior to new install of XP, run Media Direct DVD and let it configure the partitions.
2. Take out MD3 DVD and insert XP
3. Install as usual, as well as drivers.
4. Insert MediaDirect DVD and if you get an error when attempting to Autorun, simply run Dellkit.exe from the corresponding folder. After the installation, all you need to do is configure the MediaDirect.

Good luck.

 

Hope this is a help to others trying to get Media Direct 3 working after a clean install of Windows XP.

Summary:
Converted your Vista Home Basic to Windows XP Professional? Good news! If you left the MediaDirect partition on your hard drive untouched during the install of the new OS you can get MediaDirect 3 to work without repartitioning and reformatting everything all over again like the reinstall instructions for MediaDirect 3 suggest.

You can install the XP software portion of Media Direct 3 (also referred to as Dell Media Experience) by bypassing the "Auto Play" on the Media Direct 3 DVD that hopefully came with your Inspiron 6400 and manually running the following setup file: D:\WindowsMD3\setup.exe

Details:
Our office just bought an Inspiron 6400 with Windows Vista Home Basic pre-installed. Upon getting it I installed Windows XP Professional. There are several partitions on the hard drive (Recovery, C:, and MediaDirect). I used the quick format option for the C: partition and left all other partitions untouched. Once XP Professional was installed I used the Drivers and Utilities DVD to install the driver to get the network card working, then ran a Windows Update until it reported "No updates to download". After that, I used the Drivers and Utilities DVD to install the Notebook System Software and Drivers.

At this point everything worked but Media Direct 3 and playback of DVDs as no DVD codec was installed. If I pushed the button from within Windows it said it couldn't find Dell Media Experience. If I pushed the button when the laptop was powered down it launched Media Direct, hung frequently, and didn't work. If I put the DVD that came with laptop titled: "For Reinstalling Dell MediaDirect 3" in and ran it, it exited the install saying, "MediaDirect is already installed."

I called Dell Tech Support, who took me through a wizard which was developed for getting MediaDirect 2 to work! Then told me they couldn't help me because I had installed a different OS on my machine than it shipped with!

A guide bundled with the MediaDirect 3 DVD said I should start from scratch, first format and partition my hard drive using the Media Direct 3 DVD, then install the OS, then put the DVD back in and install MediaDirect. This didn't make sense to me since I already had the MediaDirect partition.

In a last ditch effort, I bypassed the Auto Play feature on the Media Direct 3 DVD and explored the contents of the DVD and found my solution! (Click into My Computer, Right Click on the DVD drive and select "Explore" ).

I installed the XP software portion of Media Direct 3 (also referred to as "Dell Media Center" ) by bypassing the "Auto Play" on the Media Direct 3 DVD that hopefully came with your Inspiron 6400 and manually running the following setup file: D:\WindowsMD3\setup.exe Now the MediaDirect button launches and runs MediaDirect and I can also launch it while Windows XP is running. The great thing is it also installed DVD codecs so now DVD playback is working too!

Hope this helps anyone else in a similar situation!

 

Thanks elcanche to elaborating on my solution...
I re-installed XP twice thinking that something was wrong with the way I formatted the partitions, because I kept getting the same error when trying to finish software part of MediaDirect. Glad to have it working.
Anyone knows how to activate DivX capability for watching through MediaDirect? Thanks.

 

What number do you contact Dell at to get the upgrade to Media Direct 3.1? I have 3.0 and have had some issues with it that hopefully 3.1 will clear up.
Thanks.

 

well now theres a solution that coulda been usefull if I had known about it lol.


ok so, I wanted to do a clean install, and yeah I guess I touched the partitions.

now I can't load into the Windows XP setup... after copying the XP files to the HD.

it just goes into the dell screen and reboots over and over again.

solutions?

 

I don't think they send the upgrade by mail. There is an Upgrade option inside MediaDirect 3.0 which goes online and downloads the upgraded file to your computer, then automatically installs into your machine. Anyone, correct me if I am wrong - at least that's how I got my upgrade. Good luck.

 

Sir,
I am having new Dell laptop INSPIRON 6400/E1505, I AM LOOKING FOR MEDIA DIRECT APPLICATION CD, can anyone guide me to findout it, either for money or download or sources for this cd

 

I tried to run the Dell patch off the Support website and it broke the apps. What gives, and how do I fix? It keeps asking for PowerCinema.