*sigh* computer woes...guru help wanted

[charvelguy]

Re: *sigh* computer woes, saga continues

Thanks Matt... I realized this after I burned a couple that I was not putting the files, & the programs but the folders with the files. All it was reading was the folder.
There was also a setup image as well, that itself burned onto a cd wasn't what I needed to do. I don't want to keep wasting CDR's obviously.

So..I will do the floppy conversion and start there with the four boot floppy's.

I'm a little confused by this program which way to navigate doing what to do.

[Newc]

Re: *sigh* computer woes, saga continues

If the BIOS supports booting from a CDRoM, you shouldn't need the setup floppies, since mostly what they install are the CD drivers.
Try booting straight from the CD in the BIOS first.

[charvelguy]

Re: *sigh* computer woes, saga continues

The CD is in the drive...I do a control, alt, delete, the BIOs flashes and it goes thru the startup..I can hear the drive whir, and the light comes on, but its not reading the cd..unless I have to be in another place. I assume its been wiped clean and the drivers are not present.

[Drsracing]

Re: *sigh* computer woes, saga continues

If all else fails Kick It

[Sandman0170]

Re: *sigh* computer woes, saga continues

This happen after the boot disks?

[charvelguy]

Re: *sigh* computer woes, saga continues

yeah, I made some boot disks and I still get nothing but "invalid system disk"

When I used WinImage..I used the batch assistant Wizard.
I selected 'set of images' which opened the list for 4 boot images. CDBOOT1.IMG, CDBOOT2.IMG, CDBOOT3.IMG, CDBOOT4.IMG, which were downloaded off the net...
and then I went to create a set of floppies.
It created a set of 4 floppies.
I would think these should work when I flash BIOS with Ctrl, ALT, Delete, but they have done nothing but read for a bit, then go back to "invalid system disk"

I even reset the BIOS to read the floppy drive first.

[Newc]

Re: *sigh* computer woes, saga continues

Custom Gateway BIOS looking for Gateway's customized loader - no Gateway loader, no loading period.

[charvelguy]

Re: *sigh* computer woes, saga continues

So..how do I activate or aquire a loader? Are you refering to a system driver?
The weird thing is I can't type any commands..all I get is F1 to BIOS or "invalid system disk, replace the disk, and then press any key"

press any key, it comes up with the same error message.
So, for this to happen the drive is not recognized in BIOS even tho I have set it to be first? how does that happen?

I haven't heard back from the guys who sold it either.. I call them tomorrow.

[Newc]

Re: *sigh* computer woes, saga continues

Typical setup: Gateway's deal with Microsoft involved putting in their OEM setup discs a specific "Gateway Only" set of codes - loader/preload keys that their customized BIOS also looks for. This is to keep customers from buying hardware upgrades from Circuit City or Dell, but only from Gateway, so they can charge whatever markup they want and have their customers by the short curlies.

What you've got is a Gateway computer that has a BIOS that was customized specifically for Gateway, and can only respond to the setup discs that were customized for Gateway. Try HP or Dell discs, even if they're the same OS version, and the BIOS will not see the customized Gateway preload keys, and tell you there's a problem.

That's the primary reason I would never buy a ready-made system, other than a laptop (and when someone gets off their butt and starts making available and affordable laptop parts like they make desktop parts, I will have a Newcenstein Special laptop [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img])

[charvelguy]

Re: *sigh* computer woes, saga continues

ok, 'mind me never to buy a Gateway again. I have a couple other boards here, or possibly I can still return it.
Can I pull the HD, run it as a slave and see if I can load Win 2K on it that way? or will it have the same issue if I am able to load a system on it...ie; it won't recognize it.
The HD is a WD caviar - WD200, a 20 gig.
I would like to at least be able to read it.

[SeventhSon]

Re: *sigh* computer woes, saga continues

as a test, try to get a DOS boot floppy and see if your computer will boot from that. if you look on the net, there ARE floppy images that will allow you to read the contents of a CD and navigate to setup.exe and launch it. I'm pretty sure there is a cut down version of 98SE that fits on a floppy and allows you to do this.

[SeventhSon]

Re: *sigh* computer woes, saga continues

presumably you made the floppy images on a good computer? will your good computer boot from that floppy? it should if you did everything correctly.

[charvelguy]

Re: *sigh* computer woes, saga continues

ya, I made the floppies on this system which is running fine.. but this system runs WinXP pro. I just had downloaded the WIN 2K boot files from the bootdisk.com site.
I have not tested them.. at least not on this system..next question on that is..can I test WIN 2K boot floppies on the operational system if I run WINXP?

[SeventhSon]

Re: *sigh* computer woes, saga continues

[ QUOTE ]
ya, I made the floppies on this system which is running fine.. but this system runs WinXP pro. I just had downloaded the WIN 2K boot files from the bootdisk.com site.
I have not tested them.. at least not on this system..next question on that is..can I test WIN 2K boot floppies on the operational system if I run WINXP?

[/ QUOTE ]

absolutely. you can do that safely as long as you don't actully proceed with the installation!

[charvelguy]

Re: *sigh* computer woes, saga continues

I've put the Gateway HD (a western) as a slave on my operational system. Windows was able to detect it and I'm running some tests on it now. (scandisk, virus test and anything else I can think of)
Now I am wondering if I can DL the version of WIN 2k on this and it will boot up when I run it on the Gateway?
I'll test the boot floppies on this as well.

Thank you again for everyone contributing advice!