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    Working e1705 MediaDirect? Send your MBR please!

    Discussion in 'Dell' started by 89TROOPER, Feb 27, 2006.

  1. 89TROOPER

    89TROOPER Notebook Enthusiast

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    If someone still has a working factory installed MediaDirect (that works with the hardware button with the PC off), can you copy your MBR sector and post/email me?

    In linux (via Knoppix boot, Fedora rescue mode, Ubuntu Live, etc):
    dd if=/dev/sda of=mbr.bin bs=512 count=1

    I'd like to see if I can hack the functionality of the button to launch a tiny Linux distro from a logical partition (even if I resinstall MediaDirect, I doubt it will see my ext3 partitions). Right now, the button just starts Grub like the power button...
     
    89TROOPER, Feb 27, 2006
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  2. 89TROOPER

    89TROOPER Notebook Enthusiast

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    Some more interesting info:

    Received e1705
    Wiped H/D (removed Dell Diagnostics and DSR partitions)
    Partitioned as follows:
    Primary 1: 20GB NTFS, ID 0x07 (WinXP Pro)
    Primary 2: 4.5GB UFS (Solaris), ID 0xBF (Solaris 10_x86 still won't install here...)
    Primary 3: 1 GB FAT16 (DOS 7.10, for XCOM and other old games ;), ID 0x0e (FAT16 LBA)
    Primary 4: Extended, ID 0x0F (EXT'D LBA)
    Logical 5: 54MB ext2, ID0x83 (Linux /boot)
    Logical 6: ~21GB Linux LVM2, ID0x8e
    Logical 7: 2GB swap, ID0x82 (yes I know should be on outer tracks)
    Logical 8: 26GB data, FAT32, ID0x0C (FAT32 LBA)

    GRUB bootloader installed in MBR

    With this setup, with the PC off, pressing the MediaDirect button displays a splash screen, and then launches Grub stage 1 as if I had pressed the power button. Mediadirect mapped to winamp via reg hack in WinXP (should be able to do this in Linux w/xmms too)

    SO...I ran the MediaDirect repair utility from the CD, burned from the iso that comes with R113024.EXE. The MediaDirect button worked with power off, but couldn't see any mp3's (there were some in the NTFS partition which is a Basic Disk. Anyone know what OS this is and what filesystems it can see? Windows XP Embedded maybe?). If I tried to boot normally, I got the "PBR Descriptor" error (PBR is a Partition Boot Record, aka boot record in a partition. Similar to MBR but with no partition table).

    The utility changed the ID of the WinXP partition to 0xDE
    Left the BF and 0E partitions alone.
    Changed the extended type to 5 (older ID)
    Totally hosed up the extended start and end cylinders.

    Luckily ;) , I had saved my old MBR (which includes the 64 byte partition table) via the dd command above to a USB drive, was able to restore from a linux boot CD. Guess what? Everything works as it did before I ran the Repair Utility. So the utility just changed the ID of my Windows partition but didn't write any data to it (that I can tell). I saved the Dell MBR for disassembly. I'm hoping I can figure out what it does and how to use the MediaDirect button when the PC is off to launch any partition. Comments/thoughts?
     
    89TROOPER, Feb 28, 2006
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