I fixed my MediaDirect 2.0 button.....herre's how. - Page 13

Do you have the original hard drive that came with your laptop? MediaDirect would only be loaded (obviously) in the HPA on a hard drive that came from the factory - like mine was. At any rate if it says there isn't one then I guess you have nothing to worry about!

Just a note to whoever that if MediaDirect is on a partition on your HD you can set it up as an OS Choice on boot-up. Just edit your boot.ini file and add the line;

multi(#)disk(#)rdisk(#)partition(#)\WINDOWS="MediaDirect (or whatever you want)"

replacing # with the appropriate number, under the [operating systems] tag.

Yes its the original hardrive, i bought this i9400 new from dell uk. I wonder how many people got this i9400 from the uk and media direct didnt work? id like to know.

It must be an international policy of Dell's to hire as many stupid people as possible.

i believe in the saying "you pay peanuts and you get monkey's" lol

doughy, I to was supplied my 9400 without Media Direct. Contacting Dell is simply a waste of time. I have had no luck let installing Media Direct. Can somone confirm it's possible on a machine that has never had Media Direct installed?

At this point there are few folks that would fit that category, 'doughy' being one, but most folks that are reinstalling still have their original hard drives.

Couple of questions may be in order...

How have you confirmed that MediaDirect is not present?

What steps have you followed wrt any MediaDirect REPAIR or REINSTALLATION?

If you attempted a Reinstallation, what reinstall utility version did you use??

What symptoms are you seeing when you attempt to repair/reinstall?

What is your hard drive configuration wrt partitions?

Some of that info might help sort out what's going on.... or not....

Cheers

Mark

I used the BootCD.iso to confirm that i had no protected/hidden partition.

Tried the repair CD first, but this did not work. Then downloaded from a webforum (not this one but cant remember which) the Reinstall CD. Got this to install and followed various instructions but still without luck.

I still have all my orignal Dell Paritions (restore & diagnostics). No other paritions created.

However now i cannot get the installation past 10%. I wonder if i have a damaged iso file as the file size is slightly smaller than that mentioned in post #233. I have try so many think from diffrent post and forum that i now can remember what i have and have not tried!

Thanks for any help you can provide. However i do not hold high hopes.

I'm sure you can get it to work on your laptop. Stopping at 10% is a common problem. It is most likely a result of not having enough unallocated space left on your HD. Dell says leave 1308MB free but they're stupid. You should actually leave around 1500MB free (I think it's around 1450MB, but go with 1500 just to be sure - I left 1514MB free when I installed). Try this and get back to us. I'm also wondering - do the UK 9400s have the MediaDirect button?

Hope this helps - get back to us.

P.S. - At 10% is when the install formats the partition, give it a few minutes.

Do you have PTEdit??? If not....

Download the following two files:

PTEDIT32

VFD_Folders

1. Run the VFD_Folders.exe [which is a self-extracting archive]. Change the default path and extract the files to a folder of your choice [e.g. C:\Part_Chk]

2. Unzip the PTEdit32.zip file and place PtEdit32.exe in the C:\Part_Chk\VFD folder

3. Now simply double click on PtEdit32.exe and that should launch "PowerQuest Partition Table Editor"

Let us know what you've got at the moment...

vr

Mark

Yes the uk version does have the media direct button, Works fine now since installing the media direct app.

ok, this is my PTEdit Screenshot



What is the wrong value?

The following is modified post from NBR forum....

'Long' Repair

These steps are needed if you deleted ALL the Dell partitions during Windows Reinstallation....

A. Overview: In addition to re-writing the Dell Boot code to the hard drive, you must also get the hard drive Partition Table into a MediaDirect 'friendly' configuration. The Dell boot code is very particular about the configuration of the Partition Table and will not run properly if certain changes are made.

WARNING.... The following guide is based on the assumption you deleted all partitions during the Windows reinstallation. If your computer is in some other configuration, do NOT proceed.

B. What you'll need....

Note... you'll only need the Head.zip file as you already have the others...

• Head.zip
• PTEDIT32.zip
• VFD_Folders.exe

C. Creating a 'Backup' [The steps in this section are 'optional', but not a bad idea... Edit... Actually it's a VERY GOOD IDEA]

1. Extract the head.zip file and put MBRUtil.exe in the root "C" directory of your hard drive. [I'd delete the WipeTrk.exe and Wipetrkd.exe files as those are VERY dangerous utilities to have laying around. If you accidentally run them, they WILL cause serious problems.] Delete them now while you still remember!!!!

2. From Windows; Start Menu; Run; Enter mbrutil /sh=track0

That's mbrutil space /sh=track0

3. Now in your root directory you should see the track0 file; Copy this file to a location other than your laptop hard drive. This is your 'emergency' backup in case something goes 'bad'. If you did need to recover, you'd use the DOS utility, MBRUtilD.exe with the switch specified in the ReadMe.txt file contained in the original zip file.

D. Modifying the Partition Table

Now simply double click on PtEdit32.exe and that should launch "PowerQuest Partition Table Editor"

4. Very carefully copy the values from row 2 to row 3.

5. Double check your values and make sure they are IDENTICAL

6. Very carefully copy the values from row 1 to row 2.

7. Double check your values and make sure they are IDENTICAL

8. Now place zeros in all columns for row 1.

The Partition Table should look something like this....

00......00......0.......0.......0.......0.........0........0........0............. ....0
07......80......0.......1.......1.......1023....254.....63......63.............191 398347
0F......00......1023..0.......1.......1023.....254.....63.....191398410...1028160
00......00......0......0.......0.......0.........0........0........0.............. .....0

9. Save your changes and close the Editor window

10. Using the Start Menu Restart your computer

11. If you have previously run the MediaDirect Repair utility to load the Dell boot code, you should be done at this point. If not, follow the steps listed above for performing a 'Short Repair'.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

fwiw Here's a link to the original thread....

Hold on to that track0 file just in case!!!! And good luck.

Mark

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NOTE [5 May 06]: Having done some additional investigating.... There are needed actions after step 9 in order for this to work right...

I am in the process of revising the referenced post, so please read that if you intend to do this.....

sounds like a plan. I will give it another go as soon as i get a chance, and let you know how it goes.

Cheers

p.s. I can confirm the UK 9400's do have the media direct button.

Thank You MarkMck.

No lucky for me.

I followed step by step the instructions, all was good, but when i finally boot up windows, i receive this error:

"<windows root>\system32\hal.dll is missing or corrupt, please re-install." and crash, system restarted.

I sought on the internet about this, and i found this page:

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_haldll_missing.htm

I tried all the possible solutions, but nothing functioned.

Finally, and after long long time, i ran MbrUtild for recover the original configuration. At this moment i only can run in safe mode, I will see that I can do.

Sounds like your BOOT.INI file is pointing to the wrong partition. Edit it and make sure both lines pointing to your Windows OS have the right partition in them (and the DISK and RDISK, but they probably do).

In case you don't know how to edit BOOT.INI; from a command prompt in the root directory, type "attrib boot.ini -s -r -h" [enter] "edit boot.ini" [enter].

Thanks RNGuy.

But, when i ran the recovery console from windows XP CD, i tried that.

First i erased the boot.ini (because edit command is not supported in the recovery console), later i rebuild the system boot with the command bootcfg /rebuild, and later i fix the boot with Fixboot command.

All instructions provided from here: http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_haldll_missing.htm, but in all cases, nothing work, same problem.

I only have 2 partitions (1 allowing windows, an 1 allowing personal files), and my boot.ini is:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

What is wrong when i Fix Media Direct?

Have tried this again after running mbrutild.exe ???

It could be the sequence...

The partition table and boot.ini must be 'ok' as you are getting to the Windows partition. The question is why Windows won't boot properly... only using the Safe mode???

What exactly do you see when you attempt to boot to 'Normal" Windows????

And I'm still wondering why the initial problem in the first place after the partition table edit. If the Partition Table order was correct... row1 empty; row 2 XP; row 3 Extended The boot.ini should have seen the XP partition in the boot.ini just fine as partition(1)... Dunno...

Mark

Perhaps the partitions are set up so that there is no partition 1, and your two partitions are using slots 2 and 3? I'm not even sure if this is possible - but to check run DISKPART. Type "SELECT DISK 0" [ENTER], "LIST PARTITION" [ENTER], and see what it shows...

Yes.... that was the idea because MediaDirect 2.0 does NOT like an active partition in slot 1 of the Partition Table. [Note: This is only true for MediaDirect when used from within the HPA. This limitation does not apply if you are using MediaDirect from a partition]

wrt The boot.ini file.... the 'counting method' used by Microsoft is to skip any empty or extended partitions as it works its way thru the Partition Table. Dan Goodell was kind enough to point that out to me. I was surprised when it did work that way and it left me VERY confused until he explained how it works.

hth

Mark

Oh... I didn't realize that about the "counting" method of Windows. I'd like to point out, though, that my MediaDirect works perfectly and my first (slot 1) partition is the active one.