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General discussion

Dell Media Direct crashed laptop

Nov 28, 2009 1:25PM PST

We mistakenly pushed the Dell Media Direct button which was right next to the power button on a one year old XPS M1530 laptop, with Win Vista. It's been two days of blue screen, errors, cannot get into safe mode and now get either a black screen saying to reboot or the DMD startup page (which goes nowhere either).

I've googled this and found it to be a well-known problem but advice has not been helpful. Cannot get Dell online tech support, or on the phone. I have done f8, f5, f12, f everything--very frustrated. I even tried to use reinstallation disk for Vista but for another computer since all disks to the laptop are elsewhere at present. Have reset BIOS to boot CD/DVD first and back again. Tried making a recovery/rescue disk from online--no good, either. Yes, even tried pushing DMD button again to no avail.

College son is frantic. Help, please. I can't believe pushing one button could cause complete failure of computer to work, or that there is not a simple "undo" somewhere.

Winnie

Discussion is locked

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Stay calm. We have ways.
Nov 28, 2009 11:02PM PST

And seeing what I see, see a machine with a damaged OS and the machine has lost the ability to restore the OS.

Now be calm for a moment. Computer support is hard and worse when a CD/hard disk has gone sound so we are left to ponder what clues there are and decide what we can do about it. Getting irate over Direct Media will not help either since while others may think that is the cause my thoughts differ but then again I write software for this stuff.

Ok, back to the blue screens and DMD. If you did your research you find the DMD runs or the Windows OS runs. If you see Vista boot then DMD is not running. These two don't interact or run at the same time.

Let's not waste time on DMD.

--->> The most common issue I see is a non-booting restore DVD. Let's try the easy stuff first.

a. You set the CD/DVD to boot first.
b. You looked at the restore media and it is free of fingerprints and smudges, scratches and felt tip pen marks on the side that the computer reads.
c. Does it boot that DVD?

Sorry if I stop here but I couldn't tell.

And stay calm. We have ways to save the files. Read the CNET STORAGE FORUM STICKY at http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7588_102-0.html?threadID=354911&tag=forums06;forum-threads and the LACIE MIRACLE post (and the others.) Now we have ways to get the files out.
Bob

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Hard drive is dead
Nov 29, 2009 9:13AM PST

The DVD was from a different computer with Vista since the laptop disks were in another town far away. It was never used before--not sure you can do that but it didn't work, so maybe not.

Anyway, after trying to avoid hours on the phone with people I can't understand, I finally broke down and called Dell since the laptop is still under warranty. The guy there agreed that DMD wasn't the problem (although funny how there was no problem until the button was pushed and the resulting blue screen, etc. were things I read others experienced, too). He said the hard drive was fried, and they are going to replace it.

Thanks for the recovery advice. I've never done that before. Can I connect the laptop to another PC or do I risk doing damage to that, too?

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We have the Cnet Storage "Lost and Found" post.
Nov 29, 2009 10:34AM PST