Vista + Linux + Dell Media Direct + Partition ...can it be done?

I want a tri-boot system with Mediadirect, Ubuntu, and Vista. However, I also want a partition for seperate files. When I install MD3, it also puts in the Dell Utilities Partition which make it 1 too many partitions for my 1210. Can I delete the Utilities Partition? I can't imagine using it anytime soon.

Thanks all!

 

Hmm, just thought of a possible solution, would love advise as to whether it would work though...

Primary Partition: Dell Utilities
Primary Partition: C:\
Extended Partition: Logical Partition D:\; Logical Partition Linux (Ubuntu)
Primary Partition: Media Direct

Also, would the computer boot to Vista by default and I can F8 into Linux, or will I always have to chose which one to use?

Sorry for the abundance of questions, I want this 1210 to do everything

 

I have got Dell Media Direct, Windows XP, Debian Etch, and Fedora Core 6 on my Inspiron E1405.

 

Can you load MediaDirect with the front panel button ? or are you using a boot loader?

 

I use the windows boot loader so I can keep the mediadirect functionality. I have it linked to grub. I can post a howto if your interested.

 

please do thanks !!

 

yeap, it works, but the Linux has limited functionality
-Limited support in ACPI (speed step is fine), which result in 1/3 lost in battery time
-unoptimized driver for graphic card (battery optimized)

 

I can't comment on Linux running, but I'm sure you can do what you want.

You need to go through very specific motions to get things set up the first time, but after that you can divide up the C partition into whatever you want. Shortly after receiving my E1505 I put Partition Magic on it, and chopped the C drive into 2 parts. MediaDirect and everything else worked fine.

I suppose booting could be a problem somehow, but the extra partition alone (in my experience) did not singlehandedly keep MediaDirect from working.

 

1. Insert the Media Direct CD and select a size for your windows partition. Reboot and install Windows, then install Media Direct in windows.

2. Download two Ubuntu disks, the Regular disk(preferably the 6.06 version) and the alternate install disk, and burn both to cds.

3. Put the alternate install disk into your drive, it will boot into a text install which allows you to select partition configuration a grub installation location.

4. When you get to the partition screen, elect to set up the partition manually.

5. Set up your partitions making sure that you set up an ext3 partition and at least one swap partition that is twice your ram into size, both must be before the Media Direct drive,which must be the last partition of your drive. Write down the location info of your main ext3 partition as this is very important. It will look something like this: /dev/hda* or /dev/sda* , the * being the number of the partition.

6. Once it has installed all the necessary files and you get to the grub boot loader screen, tell it you want to manually select the location that it installs grub, at the screen that appear you should enter the partition info I had you record in step 5, your input should look something like this

7. After the setup has finished put in the normal ubuntu live cd and boot into the live cd environment.

8. Select Applications--> Accessories--> Terminal

9. In Terminal type in

to verify the location of the ext3 partition you setup.

10. In terminal type in

11. You should see a file named linux.bin on the Desktop. Copy this to a flash drive or other similar device.

12. Reboot with out any disk in the optical drive, and you sould boot directly into windows. Copy the linux.bin file to the root of your windows drive.

13. In windows, go to the control panel, and select the system properties app. Under advanced, select the settings button under start up and recovery.

14. In the Startup and Recovery windows select edit to easily edit your boot.ini file.

15. At the end of this file type

16. Save changes close boot.ini and reboot. You should now be given an option to boot into Windows or GNU/Linux.

17. Celebrate your Victory

 

Btw, with Debian or ubuntu, you can easily enable acpi with the power control app in the system tray of kde which you can install by typing this in the terminal

this gives me full acpi, lcd panel brightness control, speedsteping,standby, hibernate and 9 hours of battery life on my Ie1405.

 

Hi,

Your help has been useful very useful, but I have a problem. My M1201 system does not have a boot.ini file but uses BCD to boot. How can I setup BCD up like you did in boot.ini?

EDIT: I have managed to setup the boot process. Just install EasyBCD and add an entry which boots grub on you root partition, it works very well

 

I want to do the same thing with my dell 1420. How does dell media direct access your files? If I have my music files on my ext3 linux partition will mediadirect be able to access them? if not should I create a ntfs-32 partition and put my music files on that?
Thanks for the help.

 

Is it possible to boot Media Direct from grub? I had pretty nasty experience with Media Direct. Somehow waking from hibernation, instead of booting vista, the power button booted into Media Direct and it changed the partition table to make the first partition span the last 2.6GB on the disk, hence overwrote (not exactly overwrote, but it just disappeared from partition table and refused to boot) my grub /boot partition.

Does the media direct require a "primary" partition, bootable and of a particular size?

 

dear phoenixfx I have the front panel button, what shall I do ?

 

Thankx for ur useful suggestions. But I've one more question. When I resize my window's partition with media direct ( say 40 gb for windows of total 160gb harddisk), then what would happen to the rest of the part ( here say 120 gb) . Will it be remained as windows D drive? Or, will it be remained as a raw portion of the harddisk...

I want to install linux in my laptop with windows vista (and media direct).. But I want separate harddrive partition for both windows and linux. I'm lil bit confused that media direct can do that or not?

Need some suggestions

 

. Insert the Media Direct CD and select a size for your windows partition. Reboot and install Windows, then install Media Direct in windows.


dear, linuxdude

Thankx for ur useful suggestions. But I've one more question. When I resize my window's partition with media direct ( say 40 gb for windows of total 160gb harddisk), then what would happen to the rest of the part ( here say 120 gb) . Will it be remained as windows D drive? Or, will it be remained as a raw portion of the harddisk...

I want to install linux in my laptop with windows vista (and media direct).. But I want separate harddrive partition for both windows and linux. I'm lil bit confused that media direct can do that or not?

Need some suggestions

Sorry for the repeated post.. I'm new to this forum