Disabling Dell MediaDirect

Question

On my new Dell Inspiron 640m, if I touch the MediaDirect button, or the CD-ROM drive during bootup, before grub loads, I get a Media Direct logo, followed by an error. My /boot partition is overwritten with some windows-looking junk, and my partition table is rewritten incorrectly. This is all fixable -- I pop in a boot cd, fix the partition table using fdisk, run mke2fs on /dev/sda1, copy my kernel back on to /boot, and re-install grub. Needless to say, it's extremely annoying. Is there any way to permanently and completely disable MediaDirect?

PETER345 · Answer

I don't think it is as simple as erasing a partition. I blew away all of the partitions except the diagnostics and the primary partitions and set up Linux. Dell Media Direct still works! I have heard that it uses an area outside of the paritions, but that sounds pretty weird to me.

Peter

makiaveluz · Answer

Are you going to be using Dell Media Direct in the near future ? Otherwise erase that partition. Dell Media Direct only save a couple of minutes of battery life without going to windows but for me is useless.

wibbly · Answer

I'm running Vista, but have a similar issue insofar as i want to kill off MediaDirect. I have removed the partition, but the BIOS still looks for it when I press the MediaDirect button (and fails). I would somehow like to diable the button (best) or at least have it boot the OS of my choice.   W

HedgeMage · Answer

I already erased the entire partition table and wrote over it.

feNNec · Answer

Erasing all partitions doesn't solve the problem. I experienced the same with Ubuntu Feisty. Waiting for a clean solution, better than 'don't use your laptop in the dark)

Linux General

Was this post helpful?