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    Reinstall Vista and Media Direct withhout deleting Recovery Partition

    Discussion in 'Dell XPS and Studio XPS' started by Freedom0, Nov 17, 2008.

  1. Freedom0

    Freedom0 Newbie

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    Hello
    So I currently installed Ubuntu and it was good but It drained my battery so I decided to take it off. After that my computer started to act weird. The Media Direct partition appeared in next to my OS and Recovery partitions. When i would press the MD button, I would get a blue screen and eventually every time I press the button It just turns on my computer. When I try to turn it back on after putting it on hibernate, it states that windows did not turn off right and it restarts windows. I have decided to a clean reinstall of Vista and MD but I have a few questions. I found this tutorial on how to do it on the internet but i found that i have to completely delete all the partitions including the recovery partition. I was wondering if there is a way to do this without having to delete that partition? Thanks?
     
    Freedom0, Nov 17, 2008
    #1
  2. SpeedyMods

    SpeedyMods Notebook Deity

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    You don't need to reinstall MD, you need to recover it. You should have a disk from Dell to do that. It will fix the master boot record.

    Let me know what disks you have.

    Greg
     
    SpeedyMods, Nov 17, 2008
    #2
  3. Freedom0

    Freedom0 Newbie

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    I have all the disks. The re-installation disk of vista and MD and the drivers cd.
     
    Freedom0, Nov 17, 2008
    #3
  4. SpeedyMods

    SpeedyMods Notebook Deity

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    Do you have a MD disk with an instruction booklet in it?

    What laptop do you have by the way? What version MD?

    Greg
     
    SpeedyMods, Nov 17, 2008
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  5. Freedom0

    Freedom0 Newbie

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    I have the M1330 and I think it is the 3.3 version I don't have the cd with me being I'm at school.
     
    Freedom0, Nov 17, 2008
    #5
  6. zrtom

    zrtom Notebook Enthusiast

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    You cannot repair the MD 3.x button functionality without starting with a fresh install using the MD disk to create the hidden MD partition, then installing the OS. That older repair procedure was for MD 2.x and XP.

    You can save the D: RECOVERY partition with the factory.wim file and the tools folder and put it back as the third partition of the newly formatted (with MD disk) hard drive. The Dell Factory Image Restore utility will not show under Repair options in Startup Repair but you can run it from the dos prompt under startup repair.
     
    zrtom, Nov 24, 2008
    #6
  7. indyan

    indyan Notebook Enthusiast

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    Hey,
    could u please explain it more on HOW TO?
    I really dont want to mess my inspiron... I am willing to make my 160 GB hard drive into 4 partition with dell media direct 3.5 working and recovery partition untouched...
    whats factory.wim and where i can find it and where i have to paste it?
    please let us know coz ur sign show
    So u can help us...
    I need a partition for
    vista. (C) of 30 GB...
    partition recovery (D) 10 GB...
    Music/movies(E) 50 GB...
    Stuffs(F) 50 GB...
    +/- GBs as required...
    with dell media (partition) working...
    Tell me how can i do it?

    regards
     
    indyan, Dec 3, 2008
    #7
  8. soliman15

    soliman15 Notebook Enthusiast

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    OK here is what I did and worked great for me:
    1-First save you data to external drive.
    2-Boot using the MD DVD to re-paration hard drive (I used the second option and set the C: drive size to 39 GB).
    3- Install Windows from the Win DVD on the C: drive then install the drivers.
    4-Boot into windows and installed MD
    5-Format the second part of the Hard Drive (from windows) and that becomes drive D:
    6- Move Documents and other things to point to drive D:

    I have every thing including the Media keys working correctly.
     
    soliman15, Dec 3, 2008
    #8
  9. indyan

    indyan Notebook Enthusiast

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    soliman15,
    what you said is not a big deal,everywhere you can find this method.But what i am talking is 4 partitions c,d,e,f... with dell media direct working...
    c for vista
    d for recovery
    e for stuffs
    f for movies/music
    Hideen Partitions: dell media direct and digno..

    now u got me?
    I think TOM can answer me...
     
    indyan, Dec 3, 2008
    #9
  10. soliman15

    soliman15 Notebook Enthusiast

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    That should be similar so as step 5 in windows I will go to computer management delete the second large partition (it should be logical drive) and create three instead (d, e, f), then format them and use them they way you wish.
     
    soliman15, Dec 3, 2008
    #10
  11. indyan

    indyan Notebook Enthusiast

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    ok but by this way media direct wont work...
    i did it already...
     
    indyan, Dec 4, 2008
    #11
  12. indyan

    indyan Notebook Enthusiast

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    tom,
    Please let me know how u manage to install 3 os with working media direct?
     
    indyan, Dec 8, 2008
    #12
  13. zrtom

    zrtom Notebook Enthusiast

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    zrtom, Jan 27, 2009
    #13