On Fri, 14 Dec 2007 13:31:09 -0500, Jay B wrote:

i dont use media direct.... IMO its kind of dumb to buy and carry a
laptop to play music when all you really need is a sony walkman, or mp3
player.
Jay

I don't use Media Direct and always wiped it out anyway when I did my
usual reinstall of the OS when I get a PC. I use sleep and rarely
reboot my laptop so I don't see what advantage Media Direct has. In
fact, I hate that the buttons are at the front of my XPS M1210 --
sometimes I hit the volume when it's in my lap. I much prefer Fn key
combinations for the volume.

As far as the OP getting it to work, if all else fails you should be
able to send it in to Dell to have them service it and get it to work.
Of course it's a lot of hassle to do that and you'd have to back up
all your data and reinstall.

As far as Vista restore, I did that once and it was not nearly as easy
as on XP -- I think I had to have the OS disk and go through a few
more steps.