All sorted now!

Had to resort to a Dell PC restore and reload everything again, which I'm currently in the process of doing. Major pain but everything seems to be working now!!

Hi,

 

It sounds like you're off to the same type of start I was with my first Dell, an E510 with MCE 2005.  I got the system back in November and fought for an exchange system that finally arrived in March.  So far, so good, with this one, except for that message you had been experiencing.

 

I have experienced your error message numerous times and have talked at length with Hardware Warrenty Support, as well as ATI Customer Serivice (video card manufacturer).  I also get a message from Media Center when I first launch it: "Your video card or drivers are not compatible with Media Center".  They all believed it to be dirver or OS corruption, so my solution for the last 7 months has been to reinstall everything.  My PC Restore by Symantec won't work.  I use Symantec Go Back and that fools with the boot record and mortally wounds PC Restore, which I was unaware of until yesterday.

 

I was just about to reinstall everything once again, when I got a return email from tech support for  a video intensive piece of software I use.  She seemed to know more about Media Center than Dell's Media Center Team or ATI.  It turns out that MC requres DirectDraw to function relative to DVD's and vidoes, etc.  Viewing pictures seems to be the exception.  My specialized software shuts DirectDraw off when it loads and is supposed to turn it back on when it extis.  But on occasion it forgets to and I start getting those dreaded error messages.

 

So, if your error message is like mine---it comes back to haunt you, you may want to check the status of your system's DirectDraw.  You can check for this by running DXDIAG from the [Run] command line.  When it loads, check the display tab for DirectDraw Enabled/Disabled.  MC has to have it enabled to do video stuff.

 

Good luck and I hope you have resolved your problem for good.

 

Regards,

 

Zeke