I found this thread very useful for getting info about how Quickplay 2 works. I spent some hours figuring how to get my HP DV8357ea to work properly with Quickplay, Linux and WinXP. Now that I have the system working properly, I wanted to share my experience with you:
In my case, I have Windows XP installed on the primary HD and Linux on the secondary (actually, just on part of it, an extended partition). XP came preinstalled, after that i installed Mandriva Linux, which by default installed its boot-loader LILO in the Master Boot Record (MBR). Of course, this made QuickPlay Direct unusable, since the program that starts it resides in MBR and was overwritten by LILO. I found two ways to make it work:
1) The simple way
This will also work on systems with just one Hard drive (provided the QP Direct partition is in place). Two things must be done in Linux. First, use fdisk to change the QP Direct's type from D7 to 07 (zero seven): fdisk /dev/hda. In Fdisk's menu, 'p' prints the partition table. Use 't' to change the type and 'w' to write the changes to the partition table. Note that this will make the QP partition visible in Windows, since the MBR program no longer automagically changes it back upon booting. The second thing to do is to add an entry for Quick Play Direct in the LILO boot menu. Editing /etc/lilo.conf you can just copy the regular XP entry and change the partition number and boot menu name for the entry. That's all and it makes it possible to boot QuickPlay from the menu (but pressing the QP buttons on the computer will not work for direct access to QP). I use LILO, but the same thing can be done with GRUB as far as I see.
2) The complicated but more fulfilling way
To make the QP buttons on the keyboard work, we need to have the QP MBR program present. But LILO the Linux boot-loader usually also resides there. The solution is that LILO does not need to reside in the MBR, but can be installed in the Linux root drive's boot sector. If Linux is installed in the primary hard disk (for example in a 1 HDD-system), just making sure that the Linux installer writes the boot loader on the boot sector, not the MBR should keep everything working straight out of the box (I haven't tested this).
What's complicated is if Linux resides in the secondary hard disk. To make that work, we need to do a number of things. In short, to access the Linux system, a Linux entry is added into the Windows XP boot menu. The LILO -M option is used to create an MBR for the secondary disk, which will boot from the boot sector of the first active partition on the secondary HDD. The MBR is actually copied into the file that the Linux boot entry points to. I used the following excellent instructions to achieve this:
http://highlandsun.com/hyc/linuxboot.html
Note: if the root partition is an extended partition, for example /dev/hdb5, the keyword ext needs to be added to LILO's -M option (see the LILO man page).
At this point, I had LILO BOTH in the MBR and in the Linux root partition of the secondary HDD. Now, to make QPD work, I installed the QP Direct MBR by issuing the command 'mbrinst.exe /ini mbr.ini' from the QP Direct partition in WinXP (I had made the drive visible by changing its type from D7 to 07 with fdisk in Linux). This brought up a menu with some nice options, I left everything at default values, although for example the Stealth options seem to imply that the type-switching, which hides the QPD partition, can be disabled. It worked like a charm. The result is a boot with two menu levels: first the Windows XP boot menu, then, if Linux entry is chosen from that menu, the LILO menu with options for booting Linux (or back to Windows again...). The QP Direct buttons work as they shold, booting straight into Windows XP Embedded/Quickplay.
Note: when fiddling around with the MBR, keep a rescue disk handy so you can go boot your system and change things back if something goes wrong.
I hope this information is of some use to you. Also, I have a question: has anyone tried installing both QP 1.x and QP Direct 2.x on the same computer? I downloaded the files for QP 1.x here, but haven't tried the installation yet - I am not even sure if it supports my system. So, what are the caveats of having both QPs on the same system?
I am considering biting the bullet and buying the CD from HP since all other paths are thus far leading to a dead end, and I don't have the HPQPDP folder on my drive.
