Hi all,
As you know, or maybe you don't. There are two versions of the Dell Media Direct.

Version 1: Installed with the 9300/XPS M170. It's where you press the play button on the front of the laptop and it brings up the Windows XP Media Center OS and immeadtly starts Windows Media Center.

Version 2: Installed on the 9400/E1705/XPS M1710. This version actualy loads a seperate OS on a 1.3GB partition which has a scaled down version of Windows Media Center. There is a custom DVD/Movie/Music/Picture interface. This is really nice cause it boots really quickly. It can search your C:\ drive for MP3's, movies, pictures, etc. You can also plug in a USB drive and do the same thing.

The problem... Most people blow away their OS's and start fresh without the Dell bloatware. I have figured out how to make version 2 run on the 9300/XPS M170.

Things you need.....

1. The Media Direct install CD located here:
http://aibal.fileburst.com/MediaDirect20.zip

Grab that ZIP file, inside is an ISO file. Burn this with your favorate CD burner.

2. 1.5 GB of free space at the end of your OS install. The OS can be any flavor of XP you want. (Home, Pro, Media Center).

3. Your video and sound drivers on a CD or USB stick.


Steps to make it work.

1. Install your OS normaly on the first part of the hard drive and load all your drivers. Also make sure that you have Dell QuickSet installed.
2. Take the Media Direct 2.0 CD you made from the ISO above and put it in your drive. This will install Media Direct 2.0 on do the free 1.5GB of space at the end of the drive. (Press Enter to start the install)
3. While this is installing, copy taskmgr.exe from C:\windows\system32 to Z:\windows\system32 or whatever drive DMD 2.0 is copying all it's files to.
4. When this is complete, you can do a shut down of your OS from the start menu. To test the install of Media Direct 2.0 press the play button on the front of the laptop and verify that media Direct 2.0 starts.
5. Press Ctrl-alt-del and bring up task manager. Go to File/Run and type in Explorer.exe This will start windows explorer.
6. Put your drivers disk in the drive, or put in your USB disk. Load your Video Drivers, and Sound drivers.
7. NOTE... If you useing the Audigie Drivers, don't install all the crap that comes with it. The drive needs at least 256MB of free space in order to hybernate so it can open and close quickly.
8. When you are done, press Ctrl-alt-del again and choose shutdown.
9. Press Play from the front buttons... Media Direct 2.0 should start and your done. Enjoy this new feature that the newer generations of Laptops have.


Now... If you don't know what your doing.. Please don't blow up your laptop and blame it on me. I have a vast background in a multitude of OS's and have been in the IT field for years.

I do not take any responsibility if you break your laptop.

Other then that.. I will gladly answer any questions you might have.


Why did i do this? Cause I need Windows XP Pro on my laptop for various networking reasons. I also wanted to be able to quickly play DVD's without booting all the way up to Windows to do so. So, no having to drain down the battery with Network cards, etc running.

Have you tried it? have some screenshots?

Man, I'm thinking and would be sweet to have MD 2.0, if you've made it, did you mind taking a few shots of the procedure?

Can it be done without formating?

Whats an ERD disk?

LOL.. Of corse I tried it.. Why do you think I took the time to type out all the steps.

It works great. I can't take actual screenshots cause there is no way to get data from the one partition to the other. There is no file interface to move files, etc. I can break out my camera and take pictures of the screen or something

It is currently running on a seperate hard drive that I built up yesterday. I plan to use partition magic on my 100GB7K hard drive which is my everyday hard drive. i need to shrink it down by 1.5GB and do the entire process again on my permanent drive.

Then I am going to install SUSE 10 linux on my 60GB drive and see how well that works with my XPS.

Yes.. It can be done without formating. You just need to get something like partition magic to shrink the drive down by 1.5GB. The free space has to be at the end of the drive.

ERD is Emergency Recovery Disk. It's a seperate Windows XP bootable CD that is made by Winternals.

http://www.winternals.com/Products/A...dcommander2005

man if u had done this about a month ago i would do this in a heart beat but i already went out and got some dvd playing software so i am good.

i <3 you. to the max, and for the win. ive been waiting for this for so long. as soon as the weekend arrives, im doing this. any pics would also be great. [and you are sure it'll work on any flavor, right?]

Thanks for your help, but one more question:

I have partition magic and only one 60GB partition. You mean that I have to create a 1.5GB partition to place the MD 2.0, am I right?

Then all the procedure is like the one you type.

Thanks again

I just minimized my partition my 2GB so the free space was at the end of the drive. After windows booted backup I installed the Media Direct 2.0 from the ISO in my post. It automaticaly made a 1.3GB NTFS partition. So I have about 500MB of unused space. I might use Partition Magic to grow my Windows XP partition to reclaim that unused space.

I have Windows XP Professional, but any xp flavor should work. (home, Pro, Media Center).

You mean you didn't create a new partition but reduce the size of your actual and left the other 2GB unformated?

Correct.. I reduced it, and left the 2GB at the end of the drive un-formated. The Dell Media Direct 2.0 install will create a 1.3GB partition and format it.

Got any screenshots of it working? When I got my 9300, I had this very idea and was poking around the forums and it looks like Dell used it but damn it they could've at least gave us 9300/XPSGen2 the easy route to have it set up.

Thanks man! I'm downloading MD 2.0 and will try it tomorrow and give feedback

Hey this is great info Pugsly. Thanks for posting this and the link to the file. Good stuff. I downloaded the file and will try it this weekend and share my findings.

One question though.. My machine's drive is actually split into 3 partitions: The Dell diagnostic partition (A small 45mb FAT partition) My system partiiton (13gb) and the rest to my Programs (~60gb)

I'm also running media center. My boot.ini looks a bit different:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Media Center Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

As you can see there's no mention of ntoskrnl.

Any ideas on how I would go about it on my machine?

Thanks, I'd really like to get this going on my m170.