UPDATE: Brave yeye managed to dual-boot Mac OSX and Vista. See further posts below.

Further additions: It is advisable to use MediaDirect button for booting Leo, and Power button for booting XP or Vista.
Sonotone reported that otherwise Leo may not see your NTFS partition.
Theanine says: "I used the HxD and Ubuntu to update the 75 to 74 partition values as neither the cracked Acronis Disk Director nor the Paragon Partition Manger would allow me to edit the partition".
the great deceiver informs of another way of using MD button. See his post below, although it is suitable more of initial installation, when you are installing everything from scratch.


NOTE: This guide is in its experimental form yet, and the proposed modifications are not suitable for everyone. If you are unsure of your skills, don't attempt it! Since I have MediaDirect 3.5 on my laptop, these modifications should work for other DELLs with MD version 3.5. Nevertheless, they may also work on earlier versions, e.g. 3.3. Those users that have MediaDirect 2 or 1 installed should not attempt to follow this guide - it may just brick their laptops!


My configuration: DELL Vostro 1500, which came with latest Mediadirect reinstall disc, version 3.5
Before starting installation, I wiped all partitions on laptop's HD, which were preinstalled on it.
Then I installed a dual-boot configuration with Windows XP reinstall disc, which came with my Vostro, and Leopard's release "iAtkos ir2".
I used MBR and EFI.
This configuration was already working fine before I began the following modifications.

Tools I used:

• Acronis Disk Director
• Ubuntu Live CD
• MacDrive
• DELL MediaDirect reinstall disk

Note: one may use less tools for the following operations. For example, I'm sure that Ubuntu Live CD can replace both Acronis and MacDrive.


A little theory: sometime ago was proposed a solution on how to dual boot ubuntu and XP/Vista. For details see:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=231747 and http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=182495
These solutions won't work with Leopard - MediaDirect during boot does something strange to the partition table in MBR, so one cannot
have a dual-boot with Leopard after that: always after reboot the loader displays a nasty "HFS+ partition error".

Below I describe how to eliminate this error.


I used these two guides (see links above) as a reference.
Since I had already installed both Leopard and XP, I went directly to the point where one has to run RMBR.EXE program
from DELL MediaDirect reinstall disk.

---------------------------------------------------
BEFORE RUNNING RMBR.EXE, IT IS IMPORTANT TO MAKE BACKUP OF YOUR MASTER BOOT RECORD (MBR).
I used for this purpose Ubuntu Live CD. You can easily download it from the Ubuntu website.
After starting Live CD in no-installation-mode, start Partitioning Tool to inspect your drives.
Make sure that you connect either flash disk or any other disk, on which you can backup your MBR.
Don't backup MBR on the same disk, which is in your notebook! Use another one.

After inspecting your devices, run terminal and type:
sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/media/backup/backup.mbr bs=512 count=1

In this example /dev/sda stands for the internal HD of my laptop, and /media/backup for the external usb drive,
whose volume name is "backup". Please change these two values, so that they will correspond to your configuration as reported by
Partitioning Tool.

After running this command, it will create a file backup.mbr on your external disk, which size will be 512 byte.
If you break your MBR, you can easily recover it from the same Ubuntu Live CD by running in terminal:
sudo dd if=/media/backup/backup.mbr of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1

After executing this command your MBR should be restored.
----------------------------------------------------

Because I had two partitions on my HD

1. HFS+ partition with Leopard,
2. NTFS partition with Win XP,

and I wanted to use power button for starting XP, and MediaDirect button for starting Leopard,
I typed in command line in Win XP: E:\dellkit\rmbr.exe DELL 2 1
The first argument ("2") stands for the number of Win XP partition, while the second argument ("1") stands for the number of Leopard partition. You should put here your appropriate values.

On program execution a MBR is modified and then one can shutdown the laptop.
After power up the following should be observed:
1. If you press "Power" button, the Win XP should start to load.
2. If you press "MediaDirect" button, the logo starts to show MediaDirect screen and then will write "HFS+ partition error".

Note that these two points are valid if you assigned your partitions the way I did it: the first number in RMBR.EXE program is for XP partition, the second one - for the Leopard partition.

At this point you can still revert your MBR by using its restore procedure, described above (see text in blue).

Now get prepared for some hacking. Use MacDrive to mount your Leopard partition (after installing MacDrive, it should mount it automatically). Run Acronis Disk Editor.
(I guess that it is possible to do the following operations via Ubuntu Live CD only, without Acronis DD and MacDrive).

Open in Disk Editor partition with Leopard. The first thing that you will see should be boot record, located in the beginning of Leopard partition. Its size is also 512 bytes.

Check if you have the following hexadecimal numbers in place:

If you have, you can proceed further.

Now, change the value 75 (shown below in red) to the value 74.


Don't change anything else! Save the sector to disk. Exit program. Job's done!
Now you are ready to restart computer, and check if you have a dual-boot with MediaDirect button and Power button.

Further mod:
if you want to skip a 5-second delay in Darwin bootloader, modify com.apple.Boot.plist file (located in /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration):

Replace

with



Appendix

Here I give brief info on why we do the modifications described above. You may skip it - everything that should be done is listed above.

This patching changes the initial code of boot1h loader, which is located in the very beginning of Leopard partition:



What we do here is that we change
to

so even if we didn't flagged Leopard partition as active, this loader (boot1h) will still boot Darwin bootloader, which in turn will boot Leopard.

Yes, I know that this is rather crude solution to the problem
It is a quick fix, which can be enhanced later.

Comments, corrections and suggestions are welcome!

Thanks.
I will try this when I get my M1530.

Could this be with Mac OS and Linux,or Mac OS and Vista?

In the case of Linux and OSX there shouldn't be a problem - the setup will be identical to what I described.
I can't says anything about Vista, since I never worked with it.
Anyway, following these two guides, to which I gave links you can figure how to customize
this hack - they describe dual-booting of Ubuntu + XP and Ubuntu + Vista. Just patch the bootrecord on Leopard
partition. Maybe someone else will try it and then report

Hello,
I've tried with my vostro 1700 and Windows Vista and DELL MD 3.3 and I have succeded until HFS + partition error.
Then I want to change the 75 into 74 but I can't since I haven't bought Disk Director (I'm in Read only mode in disk director). Do you know which freeware could do this? I've tried with G parted Live CD but I didn't find the function in Gparted to edit what I have to edit.
Thanks for your help

Eric

Hi Eric,

do you have Ubuntu Live CD? If no, I suggest to download it: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download
After you burn it to CD, boot from it and run terminal and Partition Tool.
The following command applies if you have Leopard partition on sda1.
Make a copy of it on external drive by typing in terminal
sudo dd if=/dev/sda1 of=/media/backup/backup_sda1.mbr bs=512 count=1


I'll post in five minutes on what to do next

Hi,
I've already done that step with success.
I've downloaded a cracked Acronis disk director so I've just changed the 75 into 74. I'll inform you if that work in a few minutes
I'd like to know if you can change the DELL MD picture which is so awful by the one you want?

Added later:
Ok, after you backup your boot record of Leopard partition (it is different from MBR!),
you can edit it manually (before editing it manually, make another backup of it just in case smth goes wrong).
Download and install free HEX editor from here: http://mh-nexus.de/downloads.php?product=HxD
Then open the backed up boot record file backup_sda1.mbr, and modify appropriate number (75=>74).
Save the file. Boot from Ubuntu Live CD. Open terminal and Partition tool.
Type in terminal:
sudo dd if=/media/backup/backup_sda1.mbr of=/dev/sda1 bs=512 count=1

Make sure that you correctly determine the name of Leopard partition!
After writing boot record you can restart.

I've succeeded with Acronis and now I'm on OS X having started with DELL MD button!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU MR LENKA PENKA.
Now, do you know if it's possible to change this awful picture of DELL MD?

To sum up: DELL MD 3.3, VISTA & Leo, VOSTRO 1700 => All is OK with your perfect tuto

Congrats!
I haven't bothered with that MediaDirect logo, since it doesn't bother me that much.

I didn't analyzed the MBR code of MediaDirect in order to understand what it does during boot.
There are also two options - one is that there is a hidden partition (so called HPA) which cannot be uncovered by common partition tools (GParted included). The second option is that this picture comes from BIOS.
If this is the first case then I guess nothing could be done - I'm not aware of common programs that allow such access to HPA (there are of course more tricky ways to access it via lower-level programs but these are usually used
by people who repair hard drives). If it is stored in BIOS than you can download latest BIOS firmware from DELL's website and try to disassemble it. After appropriate recompilation you can flash it. This option is no better than the first since you can lose your whole laptop quite easily

A side note: if somehow you make your Leopard partition active again, you may encounter "HFS+ partition error".
In this case just make WinXP partition active back and everything should work fine.

What is exactly the usefulness of your Appendix?

Well, it is just a simple description of why 74 sometimes is better than 75
It also shows that the root of the problem with common "HFS+ partition error" lies in this code.
Moreover I think that a better solution maybe proposed (e.g. writing another bootloader boot1h) - this is also another reason why I put that appendix.
And finally, it may stimulate other people to find solution to remaining problems with Hackintoshes.

Ok. I don't know how to dissassemble latest bios and then recompile so I won't try. Furthermore, I don't want to brick my lappy!
So if a pro succeed in changing this picture, please say it here!

Working well on my Inspiron 9400
Thanks Lenka-Penka, good skill!
EDIT: One problem; Leo can't anymore mount my xp partition. (i never open it from Leopard, but it can be a problem for others users)

I don't have this problem. My Vista partition is still mounted

Glad that you managed too


It is strange - I can still mount NTFS partition, and my VMWare works as stable as before patching.
Right now I can't think of why it happened to you

OK, i give you more informations:
HD map:
-partition 1: Fat32
-partition 2: NTFS (xp)
-partition 3: HFS+ (Leo)

I used MediaDirect button to launch XP (\dellkit\rmbr.exe DELL 3 2)
Changed Leo bootsector AF 75 by AF74

Given that i use MediaDirect button to launch XP, maybe the issue comes with it.

HI sonotone,

yes, I think that this is the problem - MediaDirect program which starts when
you press its button, changes MBR. Probably Leo relies on MBR to determine
whether to mount partition or not. I suggest you to rewrite values with RMBR,
so the MediaDirect button launches Leo, and Power button - Vista. But first
recover your original MBR, which I think you should have saved before.

As i said, it's not a problem for me, cause i've never used this partition from Leopard. However, this issue is now known

Works perfectly! I used the HxD and Ubuntu to update the 75 to 74 partition values as neither the cracked Acronis Disk Director nor the Paragon Partition Manger would allow me to edit the partition. The HFS+ error persisted still until I realized that the Leo partiion ID was reset to 07, upon fixing that with fdisk and rerunning the rmbr.exe DELL 1 2, I can now boot Vista via the power button and Leo via the media one. It's actually quite handy.

Bravo and Thank You LenkaPenka!

thanks for the great guide. I followed the thread below a while back. I know it's long and hard to find everything.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread...9086&page=5

but it solved my problems and I got my MD button back. Works perfectly fine with Vista btw.

thanks again for taking your time and writing sth up.

btw. for me the easiest way to get MD3 and functional button is to format the drive with MD drive preparation tool, then install Vista (or have an image and put on one partition) and then put an image of OSX on the other partition. I use Acronis True Image to do the latter. Use tboot for dual boot and MD3 is working perfectly fine still since it prepared the drive. With an already installed Vista and already installed OSX you can make an image of each partition and start with the MD3 drive preparation tool like above, then just copy images onto the partitions and set the one with Vista active...You may have to resize partitions to fit your own image onto the MD3 created ones (Acronis Disk Director).

no messing around with partition tables anymore. But, as Lenka-Penka points out this is best for an installation from scratch. It requires that you have at least an image of the OSX partition.

Hi all,

thank you for the feedback. I've updated the first post to include the mods proposed.

great guide! question about the MD partition. Is this still managed via a hidden protected partition? when I got my laptop (MD2) the MD partition was "Host-Protected Area" (HPA). I was able to later upgrade from MD2 to MD3 when I got a new hdd for the notebook. I see the latest is MD3.5. Any insight on what is new compared to MD3? Is there an image available of MD3.5 someplace?

thank you

edit1: never mind about MD3.5. found an image on the bay.

Hi,

one of the differences between MD2 and MD3 afaik is that the first uses HPA while the second is not.
It seems that DELL reacted to many user complaints (digg the web - you will find plenty of them) that
laptops with MD2 can be ruined by simply pressing MD button, if hard drive was previously formatted.
In this case this hidden partition (HPA) tries to restore MD partition, erasing a lot of data from HD.
I don't have a confirmed information that MD3 works the same way but it seems that MD3 messes a bit with MBR
after pressing MD button. Anyway, this interference is not so drastic as in the case of MD2.

I think all MD releases mess with the partition table and basically switch sth around in the partition table, leading to either OS booting or MD. I think it does that independent of whether it's HDA or not (more on this in the notebookreview article above) and more in the long thread.
thank you

Hello,
I'm trying to do this manipulation on another vostro but I don't succeed in it.
I don't succeed to edit sector in disk editor. I've only 00000000 everywhere. What's the problem?
When I boot with DELL MD button, I've got a DELL MD table partition error. What's wrong?

can you describe the configuration of that vostro?

Sure:
Vostro 1700, T7250, 2go RAM, 8600M GT, bluetooth 355, intel 3945, 120gb @ 7200rpm, 1400x900 true life, sigmatel 9205, Broadcom 440x ethernet, webcam

By the way, the installation has been made from time machine and from a copy of my vostro's mac partition.
Furthermore, I've also tried on my vostro to check the partition with acronis disk director and I've also noticed that I had 00000 everywhere except in some lines.

edit: without modification, the error which occurs when I boot with DELL MD button is: "MD extended partition table erro" (the r is not shown on screen)

edit2: I've done a backup of my boot record of my leopard partition under linux following your instructions and what I've got is this:


edit3: I've succeeded to find the good boot record of my leopard partition. I had to reinstall darwin bootloader (but I've already done it before restoring from time machine). Maybe it has removed the darwin bootloader.
Unfortunately, I keep seeing the MD entended partition table erro when I boot from dell md button

I meant what is your configuration like: do you use iAtkos or Kalaway? MBR or GUID? How many partitions? etc

Sorry, I'm not sure I understand how you tried to copy it. Did you try to transfer the disk image of your vostro to another vostro?

You must be doing something wrong, since in this case you wouldn't be able to boot Leo at all (imo). Are you sure that you are looking on the right sector?

Never saw this. I suggest to reinstall it the way you did with original laptop, and after successfully dual-booting it, try to apply modifications.

I'm using iaktos.
What I've done is backup my first vostro on an external HDD then install mac os on my 2nd vostro using time machine from first vostro.

Now, I haven't change the 75 into 74 but i keep seeing md extended partition error.
I've tried to boot using the vista boot loader but as soon as I choose mac os x, I've a hfs+ partition error (I can boot on vista without problem). What's the problem? Is it the 74 instead of 75 which cause this problem?


edit: Yes, that was the problem. I've changed 74 into 75 and now I can boot on os x using vista boot loader.
The DELL MD button error is still here

It seems that you tried to transfer the whole HD image of your first vostro on the second, otherwise there wouldn't be any problems.
In this case I also don't understand why would you need Time Machine, if you use the original image of your HD.
Now, your problem is that you transferred only disk image but didn't change any bios settings - hence MD button error. Did you try to run RMBR program?
I suspect that you didn't.

I used time machine to restore my data on the other laptop. I didn't make a copy of whole mac partition.
I've run rmbr program following your instructions (E:\dellkit\rmbr.exe DELL 2 3) and it hasn't worked. I've also tried to launch it directly from the CD but nothing happen.
I'm gonna try tomorrow to reinstall OS X on the lappy and before this, reinstall DELL MD too.
Have a good night, here it's 6am and friday night fever was so good... without thinking to lappy, mac or anything else

I've made a big mistake today! I've erased all data on the second vostro!! Fortunately, I've done a backup before doing any manipulation but it sucks
Now that I've a proper laptop, I don't succed in reinstalling vista, installation stoped after first reboot
I don't know what to do, I'm gonna try again and I hope it will work!
I'll inform you

edit: good, I've succeeded in installing vista: the problem was sata mod had to be set in ata in the bios instead of ahci

Now I don't know how should I do to install DELL MD? As soon as I boot with DELL MD button I had a ntldr is missing and I think it write my mbr too because afer that, I can't boot in vista from normal button!


Furthermore, do you know why I've some bug on vista's reinstallation! I have big problem to reinstall it and after the install, the laptop freezes itself for second (all freeze except mouse) then start again. It's very annoying! Any idea of the problem?

I have a problem here, I succeed to make the MD button and Power button to point at the right place,


but with Acronis Disk editor on Leo partition my Hex doesn't match with your hex. It match on the first column but it get nasty on the second row. I have a 75 in the third row, I lowered it to 74 but the MD button will give me an error when trying to boot Leo.


maybe because of my GPT+EFI partition...


But for now I am using the Power Button for Windows and the Media Button For GRUB now, thanks to you

I think the problem is with the GPT partitioning - it should have different loader from MBR.
As I specified in the first post, this mod applies to the MBR partitioning type.
Anyway I'm glad that you managed to make it working

Well, I reverted it back to normal.

I don't know why but when I summon GRUB with the power button, all the OSes would work but GRUB wouldn't recognize Vista anymore (Error 17). To start Windows I had to completely shut down and use the MD button, weird.

Hi,
Just to inform you that I've lost all my data: my external hdd fall down on the floor and I can't read it anymore!!!!! I'm so angry about that!
Anyway, it's my fault, I had just not to type yes when dell media direct ask me for repartitonning.
Nevertheless, I finally manage to reinstall vista on the second vostro (with a {censored} sata problem) and now everything work on it. I'll try to reinstall mac later because it was a bad remember. But do you know how can I do to reinstall dell Media Direct on the "hidden" partition? I don't know how and dell MD cd tells me that I've to prepare my HDD (when I "prepare" it, it erased all partions and all data....)

Finally got around setting this up. Works pretty nice.

I used Hiren's Boot CD to edit the partition, it comes with Acronis Disk Director. This eliminates installing Macdrive and Acronis Disk Editor in Windows.

you've done it wrong. You must prepare MediaDirect with the DVD first (boot from DVD) then install Vista, then install MD DVD from Windows.

I am having some problems with MD setup and Parallels Boot Camp.
I used to run XP BootCamp Parallells with "Disk 0:0 image = Boot Camp;disk0s1", now I am getting "Windows did not start successfully" screen (bootloader) and when I say start it, it doesn't go any forward.
I checked Parallels logs and it gives "get_da_disk_info() no file system present" error.

Anyone had this problem?

Edit: Tried VMware Fusion, that works fine, but I really need Parallels.
Edit2: Apparently, Parallels needs the bootcamp partition to be active in order to function.

Does anyone know if there is a way to change the image displayed when booting via the MediaDirect button?

I'm using MediaDirect 3.5, have tried finding something via Google but had no luck so far.

Cheers

Not possible, that image is coming from the Dell BIOS.

I just got my M1530, so I decided to make a clean installation, first of all, I used the MD disk to prepare the partition, then install Vista and MD, After that I used Disk management to shrink a new partition for Mac osx (leo4allv3). Mac osx installation went fine, but when it restarted, it couldn't boot and show HFS+ partition error . So I wasn't able to do the MD button hack
Could anyone please help me out! this Mac os stuff is kinda new to me
TIA

Hi kotori,

don't use MD disk for partitioning, do as previous posters did - use GParted CD for this.
Sorry, I can't help much since I don't have Vista but one thing is sure - you should have a working dual-boot
installation before you try MD button hack

Thanks for your reply
I'm done with the MD button hack! YAY

While I'm trying to modify com.apple.Boot.plist file (located in /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration):
this is what I get

<key>Kernel Flags</key>
<string>-v</string>
<key>Timeout</key>
<string>10</string>

I change the 10 to 1 but I don't know what to do with the -v, because it's totally different than what OP has


Replace
CODE
<key>Quiet Boot</key>
<string>No</string>
<key>Timeout</key>
<string>5</string>

with

CODE
<key>Quiet Boot</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>Timeout</key>
<string>0</string>

no 1 could help me out!!!

Try to replace

<key>Kernel Flags</key>
<string>-v</string>

with

<key>Quiet Boot</key>
<string>Yes</string>

it works, thanks bro

I'm now pretty happy with the MD button hack, thanks for your great tutorial

not sure if anyone is still following this thread but i have been following the guide in the thread and im running into some issues

I have successfully installed a dual boot system on my m1330 (vista + leo), but i have vista on my first partiton and leo on my second (ntfs and hfs+) but when i try to boot using the media direct button it partially loads up media direct, then i see a BSOD!

one thing of note is that i did not completely format my hdd. I kept the original vista install (minus the dellware) but deleted the dell EISA partition as well as the recovery and media direct partitions. and according to gparted i only have two partitions, the ntfs vista and hfs+ osx!

any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

-Ifor