Zeroing Inspiron to MediaDirect to Ubuntu...

My Dell Inspiron 1520 laptop is now a stable dual boot system. Pressing the Media direct button (AKA self-destructing button) loads Ubuntu (linux) and pressing the power button loads XP.

Earlier I had setup the dual-boot system but the problem was that if somebody pressed the media direct button, it would corrupt the MBR and partitions and the system would become unbootable. I caled up the Dell technical service but they didnot have any idea of how to disable or prevent this destruction. Googling , I found a few resources which told how to make the media direct work as I want.

This link tells how one can force the Media direct button to boot to your favorite OS(this
may also help to get a better picture). I tried this few times but the system behaved unpredictably on pressing the Media-direct button, some times working fine, sometimes corrupting the partitions. The simple reason was that the secret hidden partition containing
the destructive-software (HPA) corresponding to the Media direct was not totally wiped or over written.

Then I stumbled upon Zeroing the drive. This method will fill whole of your hard disk,
(the hidden things & everything) with zeros. It took 212 minutes to zero my 160GB hard disk. Then I finally Installed winXP and Ubuntu as mentioned here and did the changes to configure
Mediadirect to Ubuntu and WinXP to power button.

Hail Ubuntu...

I am happy today, and you know why... ?
After posting this, I went home,
* created a System rescue CD from an ISO image.
* Booted with System rescue CD and deleted all partitions.
* Booted with WinXP CD and installed it on a 25GB NTFS partition,leaving behind other part of disk as unpartitioned.
* Booted with Ubuntu 7.10 CD and installed it on a 15GB ext3 partition along with 3GB swap, leaving behind other part of disk as unpartitioned.
* Booted with System rescue CD, created one 20GB FAT32 and 3 30GB NTFS partitions from the unpartitioned space.

Now My lappy is a fully functional WinXP-Ubuntu 7.10 dual boot system. I never had thought installing a dual boot system was as easy and enjoyable as eating Hide & Seek.

I could have had installed the media direct partition but I did not want to. I also don't have the system restore partition. I don't think both media direct and Dell's System restore will work with the dual boot config. considering that MBR is written by Ubuntu.
Now I am on a hunt to find necessary drivers to make my lappy work fine.

Hail Ubuntu...