On some Dell laptops there is a button that launches Dell Media Direct when the computer is powered off and get's you right to a player for watching movies or listening to music etc. Basically imbedded in the motherboard, is part of this software. When you push the button it changes the active partition on the hard drive so the computer boots to a partition that appearently is completely hidden to normal partition software.
While this in itself is not a problem if someone deletes any visible partition and re-installs the operating system under normal conditions, there shouldn't be a problem. After the Dell Media Direct "properly" exits it marks the primary partition active, the system boots to the operating system normally when you push the power button.
What I encountered yesterday, was a system that had Vista 32-bit Business Edition on it. The client had hired a tech to come in and install Windows again and get rid of all the bloatware, and spyware she had gotten. When I spoke with him he stated he had deleted all the partitions and installed it using an oem copy he had and used the licence on the bottom of the computer.
Now technically this again should not be a problem.
I was at the site to replace a keyboard which shouldn't take over 30 minutes arrival to departure. I had the hinge cover off and pressed the Dell Media Direct button by mistake. It launched the utility and basically realized it was a first time use and start to do it's initial setup. It got to the point of attempting to access the primary partiton and complained that it couldn't access the hard drive because the data was encrypted. This is a new feature introduced in Vista. To have gotten that far, the tech she had hired actually never deleted the partiton containing Dell's Media Direct. But he may have enabled the encryption.
The computer just sat there and offered no option to properly exit...the only option available was to press and hold the power button until the system powered down. Upon restarting the computer using the actual power bitton this time, it would constantly boot to the Dell Media Direct and refused to boot the operating system. All it would do was boot to the Media Direct Partition and give me a BSOD Error.
Regardless of my level of knowledge about the intricities of actually The Dell Media Direct feature, I knew that basically, the portion of it imbedded on the motherboard, must act like some of the boot managers I have used on mult-boot systems I have built in the past. They mark the partition active that you want to boot to.
At this point I called the Dell DSP Support since no matter what I did seemed to matter...I was in an endless loop of booting to Dell's Media Direct. Thier only offering was to replace the motherboard which I knew wasn't the problem. Litterally nobody I was able to talk too could recover the computer from this situation or had the knowledge to answer my questions.
Feeling obligated I reinstalled Vista but afterwards the client and I decided to see what pressing the media direct button would do. Actually I preferred not to do it since she likeley would never use that feature...but she was concerned someone else may press that button also. We were back in and endless loop again.
I had already discovered that either the primary partiton was missing and/or just not visible by either my partiton software or the Vista installation CD. there was no way to correct it with the tools at hand. While installing Vista for the second time, I called into the DSP queue again thinking the most expedient solution was to request a pre-imaged hard drive.
While the tech I spoke to seemed a little more knowledgeable about Media Direct he was baically refusing to honor my request. He then asked to speak to the client. The client listened patiently to what ever he said and had become extremely aggitated and demanded that an imaged hard drive be sent so she could start over fresh again.
Fortunately the client knew this entire event was not caused by me even though I facilitated the start of it. So I left on good terms.
After getting back home I did a little googling....