Vostro 1500 and MediaDirect

Hi,

I've purchased a Vostro 1500 N series with no OS, no MD recovery/reinstallation cds. I've installed XP Pro and MediaDirect 3.0 (obtained meanwhile) and used the patch from Dell website to make it 3.3. When I press the Media Button while the laptop is off, it starts with a MediaDirect logo and after 1-2 seconds there is a flash something like DOS based line, but it is illegibly fast and then XP op boots. When I press the button with a running XP then it starts MediaDirect and works ok. My question is: should MediaDirect 3.3 by pressing the MediaDirect button when laptop is off, to start without loading the OS as a standalone entity? I want to use it this way, quite often. How should it be achieved?

Any idea, suggestion, reference to solve this problem is highly appreciated.

My private e-mail is: [email protected]

Thank you very much for any help.

Regards,
btango

 

It should launch just the Media Direct, although I don't have any idea how to do that.

Secondly, how did you manage to get a Vostro without the OS?

 

It is sold here in Hungary with or without OS (tagged as N series).

 

To install the Media Direct on a new hard drive, you need to first put in the MD disk and do the partitioning before installing the OS. otherwise, the button will not launch the correct partition for MD.

 

Thanks. I've checked my partition with "Find and Mount" and it shows only a single partition with XP. I've installed MD from XP. So, this is the problem. Can I repartition my HD using MD cd without losing my data and programs?