how media direct button, MBR and rmbr work?

Hi,

I'm trying to figure out exactly how MD 3.3 works with respect to the button, the MBR and the use of rmbr.exe. I've read a little, and figured it was as easy as using rmbr to reasign the MD and power buttons to different partitions, however it didn't turn out to be that simple. It also appears to overwrite the MBR.

Does anyone have specific details how how this whole process works? From the intial setup using the MD dvd to partition the drive, to rmbr, and reassigning the MD button (thru rmbr ?).

It also appears to "switch" partitions around when you use the MD button. I think by "unhiding" or changing the MD partition type to one the standard NTFS one, and then changing it back.

Thanks.

 

Bump, anyone with any helpful technical information?

 

Depends on what you want to accomplish. You only need to use the MediaDirect DVD for partitioning if you want to have a MediaDirect partition on your system. If you don't, use any partitioning tool you want.

Me, I just wanted the MediaDirect button to *not* brick my laptop. I don't care about dual booting, and I certainly don't want MediaDirect on my laptop. So I installed Windows to a single partition then used:

RMBR.EXE DELL 1 1

to specify partition 1 for both the power button and the MediaDirect button.

Then I booted the Windows Vista DVD into recovery mode and from the command prompt ran BOOTREC /FIXMBR and BOOTREC /FIXBOOT.

I would imagine pretty much the same procedure would work if you did want the buttons to boot different partitions; just change the numbers given to RMBR.EXE accordingly.

 

Whats the best tool to remove all the partitions and reset the drive as one large
250gb drive
As i currently have the mediadirect on a partition and dont want it any more i hate it.
I have a acronis backup i did yesterday ready to put back on the onelarge drive minus the media direct crap

I have the acronis boot cd too but not sure whether that has partition tools on it

Thanks

 

insert the operating system(os) cd restart, then boot from cd. Then delete all the partitions, then install the os back on the system. you would probably want to create a 15-20gb partition for the os install and the rest for data.

 

Thanks Novifex. That's what I thought, so I tried setting rmbr to the partitions I wanted to boot but it still did funny things. I'll try again when I get my laptop back next week. My guess is rmbr simply boots the specified partition depending on the button pushed, and then that partion boots using the boot loader in that partition? So if none is present it won't boot....? And every time you change rmbr you will need to reset the MBR I'm guessing also.

Or something. Wouldn't the power button simply boot the MBR? So why would it need the partition specified? That's why I'm wondering if it does something a little different. If you brick your laptop by pressing the media direct button, you can (appear to) fix it by pressing the MD button again, and it resets things. I've done this. When I pressed it, it appeared to swtich my partitions around, so loading one OS from grub loaded a different one instead. Pressing the MD button again reset this so all was correct. That's the part I'm a little confused on.

 

Bump - anyone know how the MD button alters the partitions around or any further suggestions?

 

I'd like to know more about this myself. I've contacted XPS Tech support on a few occasions but that proved worthless.

 

I don't know. I got what I wanted to work to work and didn't investigate further. (I wanted to take MediaDirect out back and shoot it, and for the MD button to then not brick my laptop. Mission accomplished.)

FWIW, RMBR alone didn't leave me with a usable system - I did have to manually do FIXMBR and FIXBOOT before the MD button would boot Windows. (It might not be necessary to use both, but again, I didn't experiment with this.)

 

On the Dell forums I heard that pressing the media direct button once screws things up, but pressing it again causes it to boot correctly to Windows again the next time you hit power. Not sure if that's correct or what.

I don't understand why they don't at the least let you disable that worthless button!

 

I can confirm Wolfpup that it appears to work like this. Novifex, I know you need to fix the MRB after using rmbr to be able to boot windows. So rmbmr must do something like overwrite at least part of the mbr, but it can't be critical since then windows will overwrite part again, yet rmbr continues to work....so it's all a bit strange.

 

I was wondering how exactly I start "the Windows Vista DVD into recovery mode" and open the commandpromt, I only have a swedish version and can't seem to find the right translation.

I found that one, after running the rmbr.exe DELL 2 2 (the partition with nr 1 is a eisa-partition, if someone can explain that it would be a bonus ot answer ) I enter recovery mode, I can execute the BOOTREC/FIXMBR but not the BOOTREC/FIXBOOT. It says that the volume doesn't have a known filesystem.

I don't really know how to proceed, but to install vista and dell media direct again so the md-button doesn't cause my laptop to brick if accedentally pressed somehow.