Dell media direct installation problems

I have been having untold problems with Dell Media Direct 3.5 on my XPS. Months ago I last the fast boot functionality after restoring from dells factory image. I guess the hidden partition got corrupted in some way. Since then I have happily carried on as the media direct button still worked ok. From being switched off pressing the button would boot vista and launch media direct from within vista.

Nonetheless I have been attempting to try and get the fast boot function working ok without having to resort to the drastic measure of recreating partitions and re-installing windows just to make it work again. It would take me weeks and weeks to get everything back onto the laptop how I like it.

Anyway, now I have made things worse. Last night I uninstalled dell media direct in windows. I then attempted to reinstall straight back in. However the blasted program just won't reinstall again. Maybe I should of rebooted after uninstalling and then re-installed. I didn't though and now I can't get it to go back in. I run dellkit.exe from within windows. The percentage bar goes up to about 17% (with little or no cd reading) and then it says it is installed. Except it isn't! It is nowhere to be found on the hard drive. Pressing the media direct button does nothing. Are there rogue entries in the registry preventing it's reinstallation? I tried to go to the WindowsMD folder on the cd and run setup from there. This just aborts the installation saying I need Windows Media Player 9 or above to continue (which of course I do because I have vista).

Anyone got any ideas? It's driving me to insanity! Perhaps I should badger Dell into sending me Media Direct 4 on cd.

Thanks in advance,
Wayne