Dual boot - Boot linux using the Dell Media direct button and windows using power button in 2 easy steps

Note: Tested with Media Direct 3....cant guarantee for 1 and 2 try at your own risk
Note2. Expected that you already have a working Dual boot setup up and running.

Most of us don't use the Media direct functionality that comes bundled with Dell and would have removed it. The Media direct button which is used for launching it (the button with home symbol on it) can be used to boot into Linux.
Press MD button -> Boot into Linux
Press Power button -> Boot into windows

Before starting backup your MBR using dd command
dd if=/dev/sda of=path/sda.mbr count=1 bs=512
if anything goes wrong you can restore MBR using
dd if=path/sda.mbr of=/dev/sda


Step 1. Install grub to a primary partition.Here im installing it to my last primary partition under which i have my linux extended partitions.(Even if you have it installed to MBR no problem..just install it again to another primary partition....the second step will overwrite your MBR)

grub-install /dev/sda4

reboot to windows

Step 2. Put in the Media direct 3 CD that comes with your dell laptop.Start cmd (in vista u have to run as administrator)

cd H:\DellKit
rmbr.exe DELL 1 4

here 1 is for your Windows partition and 4 is for the partition which u have installed grub to )

Done.Shutdown.

Optional step. Set grub timeout to 0 in boot/grub/menu.lst and it wont show the grub menu.

Next time u press the power button it will boot into XP/Vista(Or XP + vista if u have both :-) ) and if u press Media Direct button it will boot into linux.
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HOWTO - Run Backtrack3 from iso on harddisk in 5 steps

I used to run backtrack3 from CD quite often but it was a hassle to carry the cd around. Moreover i already had a few OSs installed in my laptop..so installation to harddisk was also ruled out as i didnt want to mess up my partitions . So this is what i did to run it directly from the iso on my harddisk

I used grub but this may work on lilo also.This may work for all Slax based distros since it uses the "slax from=" option

1. Get Backtrack3 iso from http://www.remote-exploit.org/backtrack_download.html

2. Mount the iso file
sudo mount -o loop /path/to/iso/bt3b141207.iso ./backtrackiso

3. Copy the vmlinuz and initrd.gz files from backtrackiso/boot to your boot dir as vmlinuz-backtrack & initrd.backtrack.gz

4. Insert this to your /boot/grub/menu.lst

title Backtrack-from-iso
root (hd0,6) This should be the partition with your boot
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-backtrack slax from=/dev/sda10/path/to/iso/bt3b141207.iso root=/dev/ram0 sda10 is where i have my iso file
initrd /boot/initrd.backtrack.gz

5. Save and reboot. If everything goes fine you will boot into BT3