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invalid partition table
I've got a Inspiron 1520
I reformatted my C drive to get rid of Vista and reloaded my old XP Pro onto it
Everything has been working great (found all the drivers etc..)
I left intact, the D drive (recovery) and the F drive (Media Direct)
I'm not sure if i hit the Media Direct button to start my troubles
but now when i boot up it goes to "
invalid partition table" and that's that
So i used the XP disk to boot into recovery mode
and i tried using the FIXBOOT & FIXMBR commands but they didn't work
Then i noticed that the main volume was now called drive F
and the Media Direct volume is now called drive C
???
This explains why i can't boot the thing, but i don't know how they got switched
and short of scrubbing everything and starting over, i don't know how to rename the drives to what they should be
C = operating system & F = Media Direct
Any help would be appreciated
Thanks
Gidds
- I deleted the Mediadirect partitionReformatted the main partitionReinstalled XP proThen I pushed the dreaded button again to see if it would mess anything up (before i went too far)and sure enough, Invalid Partition Table:smileysad:Is there is no easy way to fix this?I'm going to try to mess around with that BartPE thingsee if it gets me anywhere
- no, i cant disable it in the bios, that would be too easy :smileymad:...I've seen mention of a new download to update the MediaDirect from Dell, but i haven't been able to find it in the download section
Message Edited by gidds on 10-31-2007 08:42 PM - You might have to re-install the Media Direct partition along with your installation of Windows. If you have a partition utility and a single Windows partition on the drive, shrink the Windows partition as directed here and install Media Direct from the original CDs.Media Direct appears to do some really nasty things to the partition structure in order to work. I used to think this would be cool to have but now, it sounds like a royal pain.
- Same kind of thing happened to my BRAND NEW M1330...had to completely wipe the HDD and start over...Once everything was said and done, MediaDirect worked...but the graphics quality IS HORRIBLE. Period. It's so bad that I wouldn't use it anyway...it's a cool idea, but not very practical unless you're using it to just listen to music or something like that.
- I just had this problem with an XPS M1330 this morning. It's used by one of the staff I support, and since our office isn't on Vista yet the laptop has XP Pro installed. His troubles started when he hit the dreaded "Direct Media" button. After that it was "Invalid Boot Partition."I booted off a USB drive and used a command line utility from Symantec called PTEDIT (it's free) to edit the partition table. Both the Windows partition and the Direct Media partition were flagged ACTIVE. I set the Direct Media partition to INACTIVE and then was able to boot into Windows.If you use PTEDIT, the active flag (which I think PTEDIT just calls TYPE) is 0 for not active and hex 80 for active.So that got the laptop bootable again, but now we have to hope the user doesn't touch the Media Direct button again until we can get some answers from Dell. That button has just got to go! Dell support said they are aware of issues with this button that will be addressed in a future firmware update, but the tech didn't know when or how. Maybe our Dell account manager can connect us with an engineer who can tell us exactly what that button does when you press it.Sean
- I booted off a USB drive and used a command line utility from Symantec called PTEDIT (it's free) to edit the partition table. Both the Windows partition and the Direct Media partition were flagged ACTIVE. I set the Direct Media partition to INACTIVE and then was able to boot into Windows.If you use PTEDIT, the active flag (which I think PTEDIT just calls TYPE) is 0 for not active and hex 80 for active.Now that is good info there, I'll keep that just in case i touch that button again by mistake.I was actually thinking of opening the laptop up and pulling the plug on that buttonI wish Dell would just give me an option in the BIOSIt would be so simpleThank for the info Sean
- Glad I could help! I suspect that the button flags the Direct Media partition as the one to boot from, but where this boot information is stored is the question. Is it a hidden BIOS setting? If so, how does one reverse it?I hope we will have some answers from Dell soon. The user of the laptop is one of our VIP staff, so we won't be letting this incident slip by without some answers.I'll post a follow-up as soon as I know something.Sean
- FYI... here is the summary from Dell Technical support. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like there is a way to re-map or disable the DirectMedia button since it is embedded into the same circuit board as the power button. For now the only solution is to repair the DirectMedia partition.
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Thank you for contacting Dell Small and Medium Business XPS Premier Hardware Online Support
I have reviewed your e-mail, and I understand that you want to disable the media direct button on your client's 1330 system.
In short there isn't a way yet to disable it. Now there is a repair cd for the medi direct. There used to be a way on the older version of media direct. It was located in Quickset on the right click menu. I have searched to and fro for this answer. Even looked at the button where it hits which is a long circuit board that controls the on/off button also, so that's out of the question too. I know on some portables you can actually order the portable without the mediadirect button. That is the solution I have until they make a new version of quickset or a patch for this issue.
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jcn77056
667 Posts
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Posted October 31st, 2007 16:00