Creating/fixing MD3 after OS Install?

I want to dedicate this topic to all sorts of knowledge about MediaDirect 3, in the hopes it can be fix without an OS Reinstall.

I am determined to fix MediaDirect 3.5 after removing the partition. I plan to install Linux and can't be bothered with complete HDD formats just to fix MediaDirect in the event the partition layout changes.

My goal here is to discover _WHY_ the CD has to be run prior to the installation of the OS, if all it does it partition the hard drive. My question is "Why can't you just partition the hard drive after installation Windows to make room for MediaDirect?


The following is with Windows Vista and Media Direct 3.5 on an XPS M1530 that was purchased early May (incase time has an influence). This is what my experiments are done on.


What I know:

If you have a blank HDD, you need to use the MediaDirect 3 CD to format the hard drive.

What this does is create the general idea of the following partition scheme: (Used a Linux LiveCD and FDISK to show the below)

Primary Partition 1: ~64 MB, Dell Utility Partition, TYPE: DE (Dell Utility)
Primary Partition 2: Windows Vista, TYPE: 07 (NTFS)
Extended Partition 3, TYPE: 0F (W95 Extended (LBA))
Logical Partition 4: 3 GB. MediaDirect 3, TYPE D (Unknown)

Note: The extended partition is choosen as 0F for some reason, although there are other Extended types (05 which is just plain "Extended" instead of Win95).

If you choose to have a spare partition, then it is added as a Logical Partition before the MediaDirect partition. MD3 is always the last logical partition.

This is, unfortunately, a very bad scheme because if you choose to have 2 drives, the 2nd drive is a Logical Partition. This makes the built-in Windows Disk Management resizing useless.

One way around this is to have the CD give you all space to C:, this will cause the Extended partition to ONLY be 3 GB, rather than 3 GB + Spare Partition. Then you can delete C, and create a small partition, I believe.

The Utility Partition is required for MediaDirect 3. This is because when you boot Media Direct, the Partition Layout is changed, as follows:

Primary Partition 1: 3 GB. MediaDirect 3, TYPE:0C
Primary Partition 2: Windows Vista, TYPE: 07
Extended Partition 3, TYPE: 0F
Logical Partition 4: 3 GB. MediaDirect 3, TYPE:00

What's happened here is that the Utility Partition is now hidden, and Partition 1 was "swapped" with the one MD3 was in and set with TYPE:0C for W95 FAT32 (LBA). The previous partition is now labeled with type 00 for EMPTY.

This is why if you boot MediaDirect, and hard power off at the correct time, you won't be able to boot properly with the power button and have to boot with the MD3 button instead. This swaps Partition 1 back and boots Windows.

So, in effect, the MediaDirect button is a swap button.

What we have:

The MediaDirect Restore CD has a few nifty tools. It should provide enough to manually create the MD3 partition correctly.

If all the MD3 CD does it create the Utility Partition and MD3 partition, why can't we? Well, first off one problem is that because Windows has a problem if it's not the first partition on the disc. Yet for some reason, if Partition 1 already exists and is formated, Windows won't complain. If you try it on your own, it does.

To access the MediaDirect partition, we have this tool:

MD3Utils.exe

This is a pretty handy tool is it can make the MD3 partition to a drive and make it visible. You can use this to run Check Disk on MD3 if you shutdown improperly

Just insert your MD3 CD, and open a command prompt as administrator.

MD3Utils.exe /MAPMD3=X:
(Then you could run CHKDSK X: /R)

When you're done, MD3Utils.exe /UNMAPMD3=X:

Now, using this, there SHOULD be a way you can copy over all the necessary files and folders. In fact, you can run these files:

D:\XPS M1530\XPS M15301.exe
D:\XPS M1530\XPS M15302.exe

They both appear to copy a few things over to the MD3 partition after it's mounted. I've manually copied over the Lang folder too.

But this doesn't seem to be enough. I recall more files in the drive, I assume something has to be done with the D:\WindowsMD3 folder and the setup files in there. I'm not sure if I need to run the setup files from within my Windows environment or the MD3 partition.

Yet, for some reason, if you imitate the correct partition layouts, you still cannot run the CD to install on it's own.

If you run D:\DellKit\DellKit.exe it will go 4-5% and say "Installation Errors" and ask you to quit.

It will mount the last logical partition, and just error as above. It seems to also leave the partition mounted.

Why would it error? The partitions were created correctly. I haven't tried creating one the exact sizes but generally around 3 GB. I tried formating the partition with FAT32, incase the utility didn't do it on it's own.

This would make me think it has something to do with the Master Boot Record.

So I've ran the following tool that also comes on the CD.

RMBR.EXE
rmbr usage is as below:

rmbr VenderName XPProPartitionNO XPEmbeddedPartitionNO
VenderName available values: DELL HP Generic SPF Demo
XPProPartitionNO available values: 1 2 3 4
XPEmbeddedPartitionNO available values: 1 2 3 4
Example
rmbr Generic 1 2

This sets the function of the power button and the MD3 button. The first number is what partition the power button boots, the number is what partition the MD3 button boots.

In our case, we run "RMBR.EXE DELL 2 4"

This can also be used to boot Linux if you install Grub into the said partition, it will load GRUB off that partition instead. I may go that route if I can't get it to load MediaDirect.

Either case, this didn't seem to solve the problem.

This is where I'm stuck now. I'm going to try running the OLAddin.msi and Setup.exe in the WindowsMD3 folder. Not sure if the install path is the MD3 partition or my local drive. I'll find out.

If I was wrong about anything or you have any more information on MediaDirect please please post it here. Maybe we can figure this out and find out what makes the CD so important to run before installing the OS. And maybe we can find a way to do what the CD does after the OS is installed.

Thanks

 

I don't understand. Are you trying to figure out how to install MD3 without a fresh format/re-install?

As I understand it, the way to get Media Direct to work (at least on a Dell laptop) is to boot from the MD3 CD. It prompts to eject and then insert the OS media. Then after the OS is installed, re-insert the MD3 CD to complete that installation.

Viola! I've done it twice and it works great! Not sure what you are trying to gain by doing it manually.

 

I'm trying to set up MD3 without doing an Operating System Reinstall.

 

I have actually been investigating MD3 as well, as I had smilar problems (running an XPS m1330). I even end up dissecting the floppy disk which the mediadirect uses to boot ( just extract the double-sized (2.88) floppy from the cd, and mount with -o loop in linux ) to investigate what the scripts used.

Unfortunately right now I'm quite busy because of my exams, but by the end of June I want to investigate it deeper (as soon as I have some backups of the laptop).

Just in case anyone is still interested / would like to cooperate / etc.

 

Did any of you got a progress on this?? This really really interests me! I also have the same problem! Last night my Dell was pretty messed up with partitions and instalations, so i decided to rebuild the holething from scratch.

Here's what i tryed:

1- Backup my Dell Utility (Using a flashdrive)
2- Backup my Dell Recovery (Using Externad HDD)
3- Boot MD 2.5 DVD and partition the drive in the alternative way - 25 Gb for Vista and the rest in an extended partition, holding the D: Drive and MD partition. Note that It also creates a new Dell Utility (witch is different from my originial!)
4- Boot Ubuntu Live and repartitioned (run gparted as root):
4.1- I Deleted the Dell Utility and Vista partitions!
4.2- Restored my original Dell Utility to the very beggining of the drive.
4.3- Then, i restored my Dell Recovey backup as a primary partition (fallowing DE partition).
4.4- Created a NTFS partition for Vista. After all this, vista partition ended up with only 20 Gb, so i had to free some space to create this one again with a larger size.
4.5- Deleted the spare extended partition that MD created
4.6- Reduced the Extended partition size by 5 Gb
4.7- Recreated Vista partition with 25 Gb
4.8- Created a FAT32 partition on the very beggining of the extended partition
4.9- Filled out the extended partition remains with a NTFS partition.

SO, after this, i got the fallowing partition schema:

0: Dell Utility, fat16, 65 Mb
1: Dell Restore, NTFS, arround 5 Gb
2: Vista Drive, NTFS, 25 Gb
5: MD3, Unknow type, arround 3 Gb (note that partition number here is now showing exteded partitions)
6: Spare1, FAT32, 5 Gb
7: Spare2, NTFS, Arround 35 Gb

5- Booted the Windows Vista DVD and restored Dell Factory image. I also had to do a fixmbr and rebuildbcd (PM-me if you didn't fallow whis last part)
6- Booted to Vista normally and fixed the rearranged Drive letters to my taste then fixed the Vista Recovery Console with SetAutoFailOver.cmd /target d: /partition 1 (PM-me if you didn't fallow whis last part)
7- Tryed to resume MD 3.5 setup, but it stops at 4%. No partition is mounted on my system.

Everything was working except MD 3.5!! I was able to salvage the DeLL recovey partition and now would like to set up MD 3.5 again, but a complete reinstall is not acceptable!

I think that all problem is that MD does not accept (for some strange reason) any other partition layout, other the ones proposed in the Bootable MD DVD... I know for a fact that you CAN create a primary partition BEFORE windows OS drive, 'cause that's how DeLL ships your laptop hard drive.

Also there might have something to do with th Dell Utility partition

Tonight i can't really do any more testing, 'cause i gotta college tomorrow morning (it's too early in morning and i really need to sleep a lot), but i WILL try that without touching the extended partition... I'll post back as soon as possible.

 

Yeah... MD3 doesnt work the way you think... its not simply something that you can "gets the important parts out of so that you dont have to reinstall everything".

Its all a part of the process... You can try, but I assure you will it will be no avail no matter how hard you try. You'll just have to accept the fact that in this particular version, you have to reinstall everything.

I would say good luck but... there is no working end result.