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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Apr 28, 2008
Dual boot - Boot linux using the Dell Media direct button and windows using power button in 2 easy steps
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9 comments:
Very good info..
Dell Media direct can save battery power when you only want to play video/audio files, especially during travel.
Since it's a minimal Operating System, Network Adaptor etc are not used to save power.
You can also install VLC player in Media Direct, so that u can play all video formats like divx. See this link link
One question about this procedure: the dual-boot installation that I have from before, should that include Media Direct (for this, you have to insert the Media Direct CD before installing Windows) or should it be a standard dual-boot?
A question...the partiotion numbering starts from 0 or 1? How do I know which partition is grub? fdisk -l?
@anonymous
If you are not sure of the partitioning and grub installation, its better not to try this because if u make a mistake it will be very difficult to restore.So read a lot and once you are familiar with all those stuff try this... :-) Try cfdisk instead of fdisk..it will give you a better understanding.....
Can you make it boot from logical partitions?
What if one does not have the DirectMedia, er, media? Is there no other way to "rmbr"?
Can you use the same method to have the Media Direct button boot into an already installed XP partition?
i guess that will be possible...
ok, i have read a lil about this tuff and kinda confused. i am planning to go for this real soon on my xps m1330. vista works pretty fine,but i cant wait to get back on linux.
let me explain in detail about how my comp is setup. mayb u can suggest me what has to be done.
I have 2 partitions on vista(C: 12GB free and D: 40GB free)
I plan to shrink D: so that 20gb is free on vista and the other 20GB can be used for Ubuntu installation.
After that am gona use gparted and get my linux partitions going.
could you let me know where i need to install GRUB in this type of install and what is the rmbr command i need to be using as i am having d: in vista which makes it an extra number in grub.
cheers
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