Dell Vista Laptop Reformat and Bloatware Removal Guide

I'm kinda confused as to how it saves battery. The reason is because you're running Media Direct on Vista. Either way vista is still taking up your battery life so why not just get vista ot load your pictures or videos? Another issue is their media players may not have the codecs to play certain files which klite codec can (which requires windows).

 

I think flamenko meant that it saves battery when you load Media Direct from the button when the laptop is off. This will load the Media Direct XP partition instead of your main OS. I'm not really sure if it saves battery life either, but the main advantage of having Media Direct is that it boots up very quickly.

You can play any codec you want on the Media Direct partition by following one of these guides:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=166572&highlight=Codec (written by billcsho)

or

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=2439878#post2439878 (written by myself)

I am able to play divx/xvid/mkv/etc. off my Media Direct partition w/out a hitch now.

 

Yes the purpose of Mediadirect using the 'button' is to not boot into Vista thus saving battery life with a quick method of getting to movies, dvds, piks, contacts, or songs.

 

Sorry to bump this thread again but flamenko can you clear this doubt of mine :

 

Thats correct. Only if you have mediaDirect installed and the 2-3Gb partition is present will you be able to use mediaDirect independently.

That partition is your OS and has accesss to the files outside and within the other.


And bumping the thread is a good thing.

You can reinstall mediaDirect as below....and to correct if I am to believe your speaking of the small 8Mb Diag partition...no u will get rid of that on a clean install with MD3 reinstall...

Below is what is created and what you have after a Clean install....my disk being 32Gb

 

this may not relate to the thread, but since the topic relating to mediadirect has come up i just want to ask, how do i get .avi files to work with mediadirect. first of all i just realised that im able to use mediadirect without using main OS, thats mad! anyway, i tried to play an .avi file and it says "unable to play video ... (Local)".

 

See JamesNine response on the page prior...exactly what you want.

 

Ok i followed the steps, changed tskmgr.ex_ to tskmsg.exe ... pressed ctrl+shift+esc and it didnt work on media direct., task manager did not show

 

Control Shift Escape works on every computer. You have to hold down all the keys at once. Other than that go to your system tray, right click and select task manager.

This relates to a post outside this thread that I refered you too...Can I ask you ask questions of that post in that post; it gets confusing here otherwise when people wonder what you are speaking of.


Tx and hope this helps...

 

I see a 47 MB partition in that - isnt that the diagnostics partition or was it created by MediaDirect itself automatically ?

 

I can't be 100% sure, but I believe that partition was created through MediaDirect and OS installation. I say this because, when you select partitions in MediaDirect (or Vista), it wipes out the entire hard drive and rebuilds it once again.

 

Hmm that makes things more clear since I believe some boot info regarding booting MediaDirect must be stored on some boot partition.... And that partition is the 47 MB partition.... It is the partition which is always booted i guess and which asks to boot the Vista partition when not booted by pressing the MediaDirect button.... But when that button is pressed, that boot partition boots using the MediaDirect partition....

 

I got a question here guys, I've completely formatted my hard drive but using partition Manager, it says that my basic HDD has only 110 GB to allocate from? From my knowledge my order is a 120 GB hdd. I know some memory may be lost due to NTFS formatting but 10GB? 10Gb loss? It look kinda fishy to me. Anyone know what might be the problem?

 

Many hard drives arent exactly what they say they are. My guess is yours is such a case. have you installed mediaDirect?

 

Murdoc, I have the same issue. I bought a 120 GB hard drive as advertised, but after removing everything (before I decided to put MediaDirect), I only showed 110 GB available as well. Nothing is really lost; it has to do with how the size is read by the OS. Maybe this page will shed some light to your question:

http://www.dslreports.com/faq/9716

 

Hey!!! I was just typing that!!! Thief.

Repped u for it. tx James.

 

Hehe. Sorry to steal your thunder.

 

I actually did some research about this partition, because I remember viewing it on an Ubuntu (7.10 alpha tribe 5) live cd, and this allows you to view that partition in addition to the MediaDirect one. Inside that small 47 MB partition was only about 6 files; and none of them were related to MediaDirect. The files were: Autoexec.bat, command.com, config.sys, dellbio.bin, dellboot.exe and dellrmk.bin. The autoexec.bat just tries to load a delldiag.exe which didn't exist in the partition, otherwise it would run dellboot.exe, which is nothing more than a program that reboots the machine.

So I got adventurous. I pulled up GParted, booted that up and blew away that 47 MB partition completely. I then reallocated the space to my main Vista partition (I know, it's only a measly 47 MB, but why not?). After all was said and done, I then only had 2 partitions left; the Vista one, and the 3 GB MediaDirect one. When attempting to boot up Vista, of course it didn't load up, but running the disk repair on the Vista OEM disc fixed that problem. Now, MediaDirect didn't load properly, saying I had BitLoader encryption on the vista partition, which wasn't true. I fixed this problem by hitting F8 on the 2nd boot of MediaDirect (when prompted) and deleted the restoration file. This fixed MediaDirect and it didn't complain anymore.

I don't recommend you all blow away this partition though, without first backing up your hard drive (with Ghost or something similar) first, just in case you run into any issues. Other than that, it seems to work fine w/out it (so far).

 

Thanx for that. Its good to see the expertise in this thread along with the Tweak thread as well. Im almost afraid to put in any new tweaks there lol.

 

Hmm nice info and thanx but what do you mean by deleting the restoration file after pressing F8 ?

 

After MediaDirect complained the first time about not being able to access my Vista partition because it was "BitLocked", it would immediately shut itself off on it's own. When I booted up the computer again, and right after the bios screen finishes loading, you then see a text-bar loading across the bottom of the screen with the words "For troubleshooting and Advanced Options, Press F8" (or something to that effect) right below the bar. That's when I would hit F8, and I only got 2 options: to resume w/ the restoration data or to delete it. I chose the 1st option at first, and that would bring me back to the "BitLocked" error again, so I tried the deletion, and I guess what that does is, it would start over and re-discover the Vista partition.

 

Hmm ok now I get it.....

 

Edit: solved..

 

Ok I've got a CLEAN slate of Vista but can I install MediaDirect later? How do I do this?

 

Jamesnine:

You would never have access to the F8 function if you did the repartition with Mediadirect. It deletes that so Im a bit confused on how u did your clean install.

dsam:

n u cant do mediadirect later unless you want to do it all over again. My guide below will help.

 

yeah thinking about it once again the F8 thing is part of the Diagnostics Partition isnt it and not the mediadirect partition ?

 

Yup...someone had asked about aht a few weeks ago si I confirmed it.

F8 is not needed in any case if you have Ultimate as it allows for a complete PC backup which is very useful when you keep messing around as I.

Alternatively, there is a trial version of Acronis that allows a complete system backup to be made. there is only, I believe, a 14 day trial use but the reinstall image has no expiry date whatsoever.

 

One more thing flamenko, if i delete the MediaDirect partition completely and the diagnostics partition as well and then boot the system using the MediaDirect button what will happen ? Some say it corrupts the Windows Vista or other available partitions as well - is it so ?

 

No it doesn't. if you follow the guide below...MediaDirect works like a charm. Its actually a very good looking and useful interface once you set it up.

 

The F8 thing ONLY showed up when I booted MediaDirect AFTER it complained about the whole BitLocked Drive thing. I guess it loads this as a fail-safe if MediaDirect did not close properly; because when it complained about the BitLocked Drive thing, it just closed Media Direct and did not let me continue using it. It would keep repeating this until I finally decided to hit F8. After I fixed MediaDirect, the F8 screen no longer appears; it ONLY appeared for that one instance. Other than that, it NEVER appears.

flamenko, fyi, I installed my MediaDirect + Vista Ultimate per your instructions, exactly.

Hope this clears things up...

 

Perrrfect!!!

 

I have a question regarding reinstalling media direct.

I've tried to load the media direct disk on start up via F12 and it seems that it only allows me to overwrite C:\ for media direct or allocate space on D:\ (my virutal drive) to install media direct. Both will result in formatting of either drive (which I don't want to touch.

I've partition a seperate drive (H:\) with 2.1 GB of memory just for media direct. Is there a way so I can force media direct to install in H:\ instead?

PS: is 2 MB good enough for media direct? Do I have to have 3 GB?

 

If your using the proper version, it should be exactly as the post describes.

Mediadirect, when partitioning, creates its own partition.

 

ok so when it says D:\ it's trying to say it will create its own partition (not necssarily D right? cause... D:\ is already my "recovery" drive so i don't want them touching it.

The problem is... I thought I didn't need media direct at first but now I want it back =(

 

I dont understand why it would say D: if you selected default partitioning. Only if you selected option 2 will you then be able to set your partitions. These are separate from the MD3 partition which not be given a drive letter designation.

EDIT: and thats where everything is going wrong. You are trying to follow instructions all the while you have retained your original recovery partition. Is that correct? if it is, the directions will not work because Mediadirect cannot do a clean partition and Vista cant do a clean install.

Where did you get the recovery partition from?

 

I first installed only Vista on my system. Using Partition manager, I took out 20 gb from my primary partition and seperated it into an extended partition (back up drive aka. D:\). Then I decided I want Media Direct back so I went ahead again and took out another 2 GB from my primary partition hoping that I can simply get Media direct to install on that new partition (drive letter H:\) However, It doesn't seem to let me do that. When I load up Media direct on boot, it says "You have 2 options : 1) install over Partition C:\ 2) Allocate space for Partition C:\ and create partition D:\

The problem with #2 is that it will wipe out the existing Partition that I've created. I don't see any other methods in installing Media direct without formatting my computer so I guess I have no choice.

 

You can always backup your partition(s) using Ghost or a free alternative such as PING ( http://ping.windowsdream.com/) and restore them back after installing MediaDirect + creating necessary NTFS partitions. That's probably what I would do; it's faster than starting from scratch. Just my two cents.

 

Darn, wish I had read your post earlier.. I just wasted 3-4 hours loading all the drivers and programs back... still got more updating to do -_-"


For some reason i'm having problems with an msn backup utility called concon. On my previous vista installation it was fine but in this new one it says I don't have flash.ocx (a file from flash player). It tells me to go dl it, but even after I've installed it the program still doesn't work =(

 

I agree MediaDirect is a great tool.... But what happens if I dont have MediaDirect and I press that key on my keyboard to boot MediaDirect ?

 

Nada...the key is moot. Some people have been able to remap that key but I haven't dwelved into that area just yet.

 

Like flamenko said, nothing really; but there's a whole thread dedicated to reprogramming it: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=170161

Apparently, you can even program the button to load another program, even if you have MediaDirect installed; but it will load both MD + the custom program, which I think is overkill...

 

Will the reformat void the warrenty on the dell laptop? Just want to be safe, in case I screw up the reformat and require dell assistance.XD

 

Nothing you can do with software will void your warranty.

Even with hardware, you can change a piece and the warranty is still good on the rest.

 

I reloaded vista did the updates, and disabled tmm, used tuneup utility according the flamenko instructions sytem now boots in less than a minute I had to reboot a couple of times for ths to take place but now it boots really fast. The problem I am having is the system will not shut down properly all the time it will sit on the screen saying windows shutting down I have to hold the power button to shut it off, anyone know what may be causing this?

 

If someone posted how to make the MD button open WMP11 in Vista without a MD partition installed, that'd be cool. I'm assuming the other buttons (play,stop,pause,etc.) work with WMP11 natively.

 

Hello and thank you for sharing so much information.
I have quickly checked the thread and couldn't find similar issue to mine.
I have played around with my partitioning so that I could install a fedora on my 1330. This required to shrink the Vista partition (I used Gparted) and as expected this made Vista refuse to boot. Now I was supposed to insert the Vista install CD and have it repair my boot sector to keep on. Only the setup manager just won't appear. In other words, I get to press a key, then windows loading files, then the little bar at the bottom of the screen signifying the thing is loading, and then I get a black screen with a mouse cursor. Nothing else, and I can leave it there for 30 minutes it will just make louder and louder fan noise.
Why wouldn't the windows installer display anything ?
If you have any experience or ideas about it that would be great.

 

Sorry, I cant help on this one. I never suggest reducing partitions unless absolutely necessary.

 

Well my problem right now is not so much about partitioning but more about what prevents the setup process from starting.
If I deactivate some internal peripherals (USB, bluetooth...) I get the setup's background before the computer stops... I need to try a BIOS update and retry but if it doesn't work I'm out of idea...

 

ok, everything went pretty great. over the last couple of weeks, i've noticed two things that bug me.

1) the notorious cpu whine, though only when the laptop is off and the battery is recharging. it's not a biggie though; i can always unplug it if i'm trying to sleep, and it's not worth sending an otherwise perfect M1330 specimen back for.

2) this is the one that feels avoidable. basically, the sleep mode is broken. this is not the "wrong resolution" problem - that only happened once and since I updated drivers seems to have sorted itself out.

basically, the computer goes into sleep mode and back again once (i.e. closing the lid, opening it again later), but this cannot be performed twice. opening the lid the second time, the screen stays black, though you can hear the system running. a hard reset is the only option - hardly ideal.

also, if the computer has slept once (successfully) before you shut it down, the shut-down process always fails, and you must also hard reset when the computer hangs on "Shutting Down..." indefinitely.

i hear this is a vista/nvidia problem, but it's pretty awful. is there a fix yet? i have the latest nvidia drivers, for what it's worth.

 

I checked and dont have the problem...but I leave my system so when I close the lid, nothing happens.

There is nothing worse than moving into another room and having it go to sleep when I put the lid down quicly to move to another room.