GigaMegaBlog

The extreme stupidity in question is my own. The power-on problem involved a new notebook PC that I received at work, a Dell XPS M1730.

This is the Hummer of notebooks: over 10 lbs, and 16 inches wide, bristling with ostentatious flashing LEDs. Dell describes it as a “mobile gaming stud”. I have no idea why my company chose it. Honest. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Anyway, after a week of restrained business use, I took the beast home on the weekend and started tweaking, poking and prodding. Eventually my attention turned to the Dell MediaDirect button. If pressed while the PC is powered off, it is supposed to launch Dell’s media center software directly, without having to boot Windows. What it actually does is launch another version of Windows that is contained on a 2G hidden partition, then run Dell’s media center software.

In theory, at least.

What it did on my notebook was try to run Dell’s MediaDirect software then, after about a minute of disk activity, display an error message “Dell Media Direct Express cannot access your Harddrive. This may be because you have accessed Microsoft Bitlocker (Driver Encryption).” After I clicked OK, it powered off again.

Not a big deal, and not a big surprise. The notebook had originally come with Vista, and my company’s IT guys replaced it with XP, so there were a few bells and whistles that were disabled in the process. (I’ve given up trying to revive the GamePanel LCD screen.) I’m still not entirely sure what the point of MediaDirect is, but I’m sure I can live without it.

So I powered on the notebook and was surprised to see MediaDirect launch again and go through the same routine, ending with the “Bitlocker” error. Did I press the MediaDirect button again by mistake?

Nope. Another power on, and again with the MediaDirect.

Google “MediaDirect boot” and you’ll find a lot of Linux hackers wondering how to dual boot MediaDirect (or get rid of it, depending on their level of anti-Windows zealotry), and this interesting article which describes the technical details of how MediaDirect works. Most of it refers to an earlier, scarier version of MediaDirect which used something called a “Host Protected Area” (HPA). Apparently this well-secreted part of the disk frustrated Linux hackers to no end. But, as the article points out “with MediaDirect 3, Dell has switched to installing MediaDirect in a logical partition instead”. Logical partition boot problems are not hard to fix right? Set the active partition, reboot, you’re good to go.

For many years now, I’ve been relying on a bootable Knoppix CD for this sort of thing. When you run either GParted or QtParted, setting the active partition is a point-and-click operation.

But not this time. GParted showed the 148G as “unallocated”, and QTParted as “hidden”. The first trickle of sweat ran down my back. If Gparted was right, had MediaDirect blown away my partition? Some of the angry Linux hackers had been ranting about just that, but I hadn’t taken them seriously. Visions of our IT techies rolling their eyes at my lame “but all I did was press the MediaDirect button” excuse were dancing in my head.

If, on the other hand, QTParted was right and the partition was hidden, then all I had to do was unhide it, then make it active. Right? Made sense, but I actually never had to “unhide” a partition before. Googling “Knoppix” and “unhide” made me decide that Knoppix wasn’t the best tool in the case, so I followed some recommendations and tried the EASEUS Partition Manager. According to their web page, it can unhide partitions, it can make partitions active. Just a point-and-click operation.

But not this time. Partition Manager agreed with Gparted: that 148G was unallocated. The trickle of sweat became a stream.

OK, Dell. You have a cute little button with a picture of a house on it, and it blows away my partition if I press it? There must be something on Dell’s support pages about this. Searching for “MediaDirect” and “boot” in Dell’s support area brought up some ominous references to corrupted Master Boot Records and a relatively friendly repair procedure entitled “Repairing Problems with Dell MediaDirect 2 and 3″.

I clicked on the “Media Direct 3.x Specific Issues” button, but nothing there about boot problems. I clicked on the “General Media Direct Issues” button, but nothing there either. I clicked on the “If none of these articles apply to your situation” option, and after some warnings about backing up your data first (yeah, right), and agreeing that MediaDirect did, indeed, have a secret little partition already stashed away, I was given a simple 4 step repair procedure. “Step 1. Reinstall the Operating System”.

I didn’t read Step 2.

This was ridiculous. Back to Google. Maybe this “Bitlocker” error was a clue to the problem? I was running XP, so definitely no Bitlocker, but maybe our IT guys had performed some other trickery?

So I Googled “MediaDirect” and “bitlocker”, and after poking through a few pages of people commiserating about this problem (none of whom had bitlocker installed, by the way), I came across the following halfway down a page: “You are aware that if you press again Media Direct Button it will boot your OS, right?”

Um, I am now.

So, there it is. I’ve written this sad tale partly to warn others of Dell’s MediaCenter hidden partition shenanigans, partly to document what was (for me) a hard-to-find fix, and partly to admit that I’m stupid.

And also to point out that my new notebook is a “mobile gaming stud”. W00t!