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    trouble after formating XP

    Discussion in 'Dell' started by frodobagins, Aug 10, 2006.

  1. frodobagins

    frodobagins Notebook Geek

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    i formated my lappy following SouthernGirls excellent guide but i am having problems. My media direct will net work, i have 5 devices in device manager that are unkown and i cannot find the drivers.
    1) Media Direct. i followed southern girls guide to fix media direct. when i press the media direct button when my lappy is off it works just fine but
    when xp is on it says that i need to install the software even when quickset is running???. the dell manual said that i have to aprtiton 2GB when formating otherwise it wont work. do i have to format again now?
    2) 3 of the unkown devices are Base System Device, and the other says Ethernet Controller. I tried looking for the driver in the Dell Driver folder that i had saved before formating but they are not there???

    when formatting there were 2 partitions and 1 unpartitiond (8MB). Partition 1 had 40MB so i guess this was the diagnostics one. The other 1 was 74GB but this is a 80GB disk which means that 5GB a partition is hidden with PC Restore or Media Direct. I formatted only the 74GB partition. BTW i had removed PC Restore by going to the Dell folder and running some kind of file.

    SOUTHERNGIRL i need your help, please
     
    frodobagins, Aug 10, 2006
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  2. postmortem

    postmortem Notebook Consultant

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    get broadcom 10/100 ethernet and ricoh media drivers from dell support web site.
     
    postmortem, Aug 10, 2006
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  3. frodobagins

    frodobagins Notebook Geek

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    i found the drivers and installed them, it worked. :D now how about Dell media experience problem when i press the media direct button
     
    frodobagins, Aug 10, 2006
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  4. gleng

    gleng Notebook Enthusiast

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    I don't think you'd need to reformat your laptop again, all you need is to install Dell Media Experience (which is a separate software). You can ask Dell to send it to you. I'm no expert though.
     
    gleng, Aug 10, 2006
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  5. vespoli

    vespoli 402 NBR Reviewer

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    There is a MD fix on the Dell site somewhere. You burn the ISO to a cd and boot from it.
     
    vespoli, Aug 10, 2006
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  6. Leshii

    Leshii Notebook Evangelist

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    Do you really want to use MediaDirect when the laptop is on? I would just use BSPlayer, PowerDVD and Winamp for all of my video, DVD and audio needs.
     
    Leshii, Aug 10, 2006
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  7. gleng

    gleng Notebook Enthusiast

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    Ya, you don't really need Dell Media Experience (which is the program that runs while your laptop is on)..pressing MD while XP has loaded will load that program; however, if you don't install Dell Media Experience, your MD button will not be functionally, but I think you can still associate the tracking/play/pause buttons to different programs...maybe there's a way to do that with the MD button as well? Not sure though.
     
    gleng, Aug 10, 2006
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  8. E1505Guy

    E1505Guy Notebook Consultant

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    Be careful though with the MD Repair. It screwed my laptop's hard drive and wouldn't allow me to boot windows in any mode and gave me blue screens all the time. Media Direct worked...but not anything else. :) Thankfully I was able to use Linux Knoppix off a CD to save my documents.
     
    E1505Guy, Aug 10, 2006
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  9. Amber

    Amber Notebook Prophet NBR Reviewer

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    Sorry for the late response. I've been away all day, apartment hunting.

    Just like some of the users suggested, it sounds like you need to install Dell Media Experience if you have XP Home or Pro. For XP MCE users, when the MD button is pressed in XP, it loads the MCE interface. Yet for those of us that don't have MCE, it will load Dell Media Experience.

    To get Dell Media Experience, you can request it from Dell's tech support. It is the same process as the other discs - they'll send it to you in about 2 business days.

    SG
     
    Amber, Aug 10, 2006
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  10. frodobagins

    frodobagins Notebook Geek

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    OK everyhting is working now! at first it was asking me to instal .NET Framework 1.1 or higher when i already had v 2.0 so i thought it was another problem. eventually i downloaded v1.1 and it installed.

    Thankyou for you manual SouthernGirl ;)
     
    frodobagins, Aug 11, 2006
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  11. gridtalker

    gridtalker Notebook Virtuoso

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    Glad you fixed everything and congrats on your new lappy
     
    gridtalker, Aug 11, 2006
    #11