Dell Media Direct 2.0 ... Running on 9300/XPS M170 - Page 16

Just trying a couple of things while I wait to hear from you.

Ran rmbr DELL 1 2 and shut laptop off completely.

Pressing the Power button takes me directly into the Dell diagnostics. Exiting the diagnostics causes a reboot as normal, then the diagnostics start again. Over and over again.

OK - that probably means that putting a "1" as the first number means to boot partition 1 on a normal boot.

Shut the system off with the power button.

Press the media PLAY button. XP Pro starts normally but is followed with the error message "Unable to start Dell Media Experience"

OK - good. It looks as if the second number in the rmbr command means to go to that partition when the media PLAY button is pressed.

Re-ran rmbr: rmbr DELL 2 3

Shut the system down (full power-off).

Powered the system back up with the power button. XP Pro started normally.

Shut the system down (full power off).

Pressed the media PLAY button.

MediaDirect splash screen comes up and just sits there. No drive activity that I can see.

Powered down with power button. Restarted.

Ran rmbr DELL 2 4, shut system down (full power off).

Pressed media PLAY button - MediaDirect splash screen followed by hal.dll file problem.

That pretty much tells me that rmbr DELL 2 4 is probably correct for my particular partition setup.

It further suggests that all I need to do is fix the boot configuration for the MediaDirect partition.

I'll try that next.

dwayne

Just read your second post.... Makes good sense. I take it you're going to modify the boot.ini???? I think you're on to something as it is probably listing partition(4) when it sounds like it should be partition(3). I'll have to dig out my 'notes' on the boot.ini ARC convention.

Mark

It works!

Long post follows:

First: I tried your suggestion of using PTedit32 and swapping the entire contents of rows 3 & 4. Saved the changes, rebooted.

Upon rebooting, it looked as if my extended partition had vanished. Oops.

Ran the Disk management tool - yep: gone. 85 GB of unallocated space. Oh, well. At least the MediaDirect partition looked intact.

Shut the system down, pressed the media PLAY button. Hung at the MediaDirect splash screen.

Rebooted into Windows, ran rmbr DELL 2 3, shutdown.

Pressed media PLAY button - got the missing HAL.INI error like previously.

Rebooted into Windows, had a closer look at the partition table. Lo and behold: the 4th entry had an identifer of 00 instead of 0F. I *know* darned well it was correct when I edited it. Changed that 00 (1st entry 4th row) back to 0F like it should have been, saved the changes, rebooted.

Now I had my extended partition back. I had been darned careful not to write any other changes to the partition table and it appears to be undamaged. Both the page (fat320 and data (ntfs) partitions looked just fine.

So: at this point, I've still got the partition entries for for partitions 3 & 4 swapped. Tried both versions of the rmbr settings (2&3, 2&4) - still no go.

OK - time to put everything back the way it was. Called up the text file showing me what the original partition entries were and opened ptedit32. Noticed that the identifier for the 1st partition had also changed: used to be DE, was now 06. Strangeness.

No matter. Changed all the partition table entries back to what they were. Rebooted to make sure that nothing had been trashed.

Only change now was that pressing the media PLAY button from shutdown took me to the MediaDirect splash screen - this was to be expected because I had left rmbr as DELL 2 3.

But everything seemed to be as it was - I hadn't trashed anything. It was important to me to verify that before I started playing again.

Booted into the Windows Recovery Console (from the Dell OS reinstall CD), selected the 2nd XP installation (drive G in my configuration).

Looked at boot.ini. Saw things were exactly as you had supposed: boot.ini was pointing at partition 4 instead of partition3.

Darn it all - I can't find a text editor that will run within the recovery console. So I cheat.

Noticed that all drives were accessible from the recovery console. OK - lets do this the easy way.

Made sure I was at the root of drive G. Copied boot.ini to boot.in2. Copied boot.in2 to c:\. Exited the recovery console and allowed the machine to boot into Windows.

Used notepad to open c:\boot.in2 and changed both references from partition 4 to partition 3.

Shutdown Windows and rebooted into the recovery console.

Got to the root of drive G and verified that I could see the changed version of boot.in2 on C drive.

Copied g:\boot.ini to g:\boot.in3. Call me paranoid, but I like to have backups. Next, copied c:\boot.in2 to drive G root. Copied G:\boot.in2 over top of boot.ini. Exited the recovery console and allowed the system to boot back into Windows. Yep - everything still OK.

Shut the system down. Pressed the media PLAY button.

It works!

Dell MediaDirect came up (black and white screen) and proceeded to set up MediaDirect as has been previously described.

Put a DVD into the drive - it started. No sound and very choppy video. No problem.

Used the 3 finger salute to bring up taskmanager, started explorer. Browsed to my data drive (now shown as drive E) and went to where I keep my local copies of the Dell drivers. Ran the video driver installation, did NOT let it reboot the machine, then ran the audio driver installation.

Used taskmanager to force a shutdown.

Pressed the media PLAY button.

Stuck in a DVD - it played just fine.

Damm, that screen looks GREAT when playing movies!

dwayne

I'll post a much shorter summary of my configuration and the simple changes needed to make it work, But that will have to be in the morning or later in the day.

Thanks again for all the help!

dwayne

Editbini from http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/downloads/editbini.zip
works well for that. Here's the home page...

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/utilities.html

Useful tool to have in the ole 'kit'

Mark

Thanks for the suggestion. However, it looks as if the recovery console doesn't allow the use of ANY external programs.

I had previously tried to use TED (really old DOS thingy) and I just tried to use editbini with the same results: "unrecognised command".

No problem, though. Just have to shuffle between the recovery console and the main OS a couple of times.

dwayne

I should have explained that editbini is run from 'real' DOS...

Mark

I had promised a shortened version of what it took to get rid of the MediaDirect boot errors (missing or corrupt HAL.DLL).

First: my m170 drive has 4 partitions.

1) Dell Diagnostics
2) Primary boot (6GB)
3) extended partition with 2 logical drives within
4) 1.6 GB unallocated space.

Installed MediaDirect by following the instructions posted by Pugsly0014 on the first page of this thread.

Shutting the system down and pressing the media PLAY button brought up the following error:

WIndows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:

[system root] \system32\hal.dll.
Please reinstall a copy of the above file.

The solution is remarkably simple: adjust the partition entries in the BOOT.INI file located in the Dell MediaDirect partition.

The boot.ini file located in the MediaDirect partition looked like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=0
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Embedded" /fastdetect /KERNEL=NTOSBOOT.EXE /maxmem=256

The repair simply involves changing both instances of partition(4) above into partition(3)

The complicating factor is that the MediaDirect partition is not accessible.

The method I used doesn't take much time and has the advantage of not requiring any tools or utilites other than what you already have available.

1) Start the Windows Recovery Console from the Dell Operating System CD supplied with your laptop.

2) When the CD has finished loading, you are given the choice of Installing or Repairing Windows XP.

You want the recover console so Press (R).

3) The Recovery Console searches for and displays all the XP installations on your system.

1: C:\WINDOWS
2: G:\WINDOWS

You want to work with the 2nd installation - press 2 [Enter]. Give the Admin password when prompted (just hit [Enter] for most systems)

You should end up in a command prompt as follows:

G:\WINDOWS>

Get to the root of G: (cd .. [Enter])

View the existing contents boot.ini

G:\> type boot.ini [Enter]

Make sure it looks the same as I've shown above.

Now copy that file to 2 different names. One of those new files is what we're going to modify, the other is a backup.

G:\> copy boot.ini boot.in1 [Enter]
G:\> copy boot.ini boot.in2 [Enter]

Now copy one of those to C:\

G:\> copy boot.in2 c:\ [Enter]

Now we need to get back into windows. Just type EXIT [Enter] and allow the machine to reboot.

Once we are back into Windows, open Notepad, browse to C:\boot.in2 and load it.

Change both instances of (4) to (3), save the file.

Shut Windows down and reboot into the recovery console. Again, select the 2nd Windows installation.

Get to the root of G: and grab the modified file sitting on C:

G:\> copy c:boot.in2 [Enter] and answer Y [Enter] when asked to overwrite BOOT.IN2

Now copy boot.in2 over top of boot.ini

G:\> copy boot.in2 boot.ini [Enter] and answer Y [Enter] when asked to overwrite.

That's it! Type EXIT [Enter] to get out of the recovery console and let the machine reboot.

You know - someone will probably jump in and show me how this could have been even easier. Please do - I always welcome the chance to learn new things.

Finally, a special thanks to MarkMcK for his guidance.

dwayne

Yeah - I knew that. I had just hoped that it would also run within the recovery console.

See: the problem is that the boot.ini file I need to edit is located in the MediaDirect partition. Not only is that partition not accessable, its also NTFS. I've got some tools here that allow me to READ from an NTFS partition while in DOS but I don't have anything that will allow me to WRITE a NTFS partition while in DOS.

The other problem with DOS - I don't have a floppy drive handy for the m170. I'm sure that I could get a bootable DOS image on a USB key but I figured that the ping-pong approach I used was easier.

But thanks!

dwayne

That's the nice thing about editbini, it WILL allow access/edit of the boot.ini file in NTFS partitions. When you've got some spare time and a bootable DOS CD/flash drive, give it a test run....

Nice move on the copy/paste idea and glad to have helped...

Mark

Hi there,

I have just signed in as I found this board while searching how to get rid of my troubles with my new Inspiron 9400.
From first turning up I had messages in the event protocol about trouble between WinInstaller and Corel Paintshop Pro X. I uninstalled that demo as I have a full version. ....... It ended up that I set up the notebook completely new yesterday. I thought all the programs are on the three CDs Dell sent, but ........... Now I am missing Media Direct. I contacted Dell and they told me to reinstall QuickSet and then use the repair tool. It said repair was fine, but still I cannot start MediaDirect - message says to reinstall. So where to get it from?

Can I use this version you link to?
And if so: Do I need to make a partition for it or is that not necessary on the 9400?

Thanks in advance for any advise or help.

Gerda

Sorry for my English, but that's not my native tongue :-)

Hi,

I have contacted Dell last night and wrote them that according to my order confirmation I had bought my notebook with some software which was not delivered, eg. the Media Experience 3.0 Basic (other things are also missing, and Dell cannot think that any PC user is a profi and knows where to find things before re-installing; I am just a user).
Today they answered me and they will send me the MediaExperience as well as the other missing software.

I am not sure if I am going to install the Media Experience again, I am afraid that I am too much a laywoman to be able to do it. In the past days I have read too much about crashs etc in connection with reinstallation of Media Experience.

Anyway, I receive the software I ordered, and I believe it is my right to have such stuff on CD and not just on a partition somewhere on the notebook where Mrs. Laywoman does not find it.

Kind regards
Gerda

I re-uploaded Media Direct 2.0 if anyone needs it still:

http://up-file.com/download/5b0f0522...ect20.zip.html

Thanks for that offer!
Last week Dell sent me the CD "Media Experience 3.0 Basic" - that was at least what was installed when I got the notebook.
I am not yet sure if I install it again. I have read about too many problems.
Anyway, the buttons for the Media Player work and I can live without using the MediaDirect button.

Good night
Gerda

Just want to know if anyone with an Inspiron 9200 (or an earlier model) was successful in installing Media Direct, and, if so, which version was used and the process involved...thanks

An Inspiron 9200 can have Media Direct by installing a cut-down version of Windows XP (using nlite, use Google to find it) in the normal way and then installing Dell Media Experience.

thanks for your reply, tentonine...you mentioned media EXPERIENCE, can i do the same using media DIRECT instead?

Media Direct 2 is simply Media Experience running on a cut-down version of Windows XP...so, install Windows XP, load the drivers, get rid of any components you don't want, stop any unneeded services, set it to go to hibernate when you click exit in Media Experience and you have equivalent functionality to Media Direct 2.

Just after I ran the Directmedia 2.0 install, it asked me to press enter. I pressed enter and directly went into My Computer/Manage/Disk Management and found a NTFS partition on the top without a drive letter assigned. I assigned it to F: and voila! I could easly copy my nVidia 7900 GTX driver files to the f:\windows\system32.

I copied all files beginning with nv (nv*.*) within c:\windows incl. subfolders and copied them from their location to the same location but on drive f:.

Then I went back into disk management and removed the assigned driveletter f: (do not delete the partition, only the drive letter assigned)

I turned the computer off, pressed the mediadirect button and it booted up with 800x600 graphics, and I just waited til the harddisk led stopped working and then pressed exit and once again pressed the mediadirect button, this time it booted up in 1920x1200 and everything worked fine. Even with sound. I didn't need to install any audio drivers.

Maybe this will work on you m170 as well. So much easier than copying the taskmgr and install the drivers from within the MD installation.

I wanted to do this to my 9300 but the link to the media direct file won't work. Does anybody have it?