Formating and removing the recovery partition

Please help.

I would like to do a full format for my NX860 and am having some problems.
Does anyone know how to do a full format?

I want to format so that i can put a opperating system on without the extra software gateway installs.

ive tried booting from the cd that it came with (xp pro opperating sys)
which brings me to the recovery process which uses the recovery partition on the drive

xp pro normal cd - which goes through the initial setup loading process then when i push enter to install windows it says drives not detected.

can anyone guide me along?

thanks...

 

ok, update...

I got the partition formated and the setup process to start from the gateway win xp disk.

But im sure it will load all the crap i dont want so im trying to install with a regular xp home and pro cd and once i get to the screen that says "press enter to install XP" i press enter and it say HD not detected and then tells me i may need to use the company provided installation.

any advice? thanks

 

I just got a NX260X and was wondering the samething. I think the normal xp cd won't work because the it can't detected SATA hard drives. But the Gateway OS cd will work because it has the drivers to work with SATA hard drives.

 

If you go into the BIOS, you may be able to disable SATA support temporarily so you can install XP.

 

I think your gonna have to get a regular windows XP disk if you don't want that crappy gateway software. That's what I did, but I had a spare when I bought the computer. In your case, if you don't have an extra disk, your probably gonna use the gateway disk and get all the crap software.

As for the install, if you install with a normal XP disk it will prompt you to install any controller drivers needed to install XP. Just download the SATA drivers from the gateway sight, put them on a CD and install them when prompted.

 

I would refer you to this thread http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=60368

Windows XP will not install because you don't have the SATA drivers. Once you slipstream in the drivers it will work like a normal install.

 

What kind of crap software do you get with the Gateway software?

 

thanks everyone. ill give that stuff a shot when i get off work.

also, will the xp pro cd key that i got with gateway work for a normal XP pro install disk?

 

a bunch of toolbars, aol, mcafee, gateway themes, icons, big fix, support software, just a bunch of random stuff.

 

**** I wanted to do a clean install just to get rid of that crap. When I got my HP laptop they gave me a Clean OS Disk.

Thanks for the info.

 

It didn't work for me with my eMachines. In fact, it's so sensitive that it wouldn't work with the actual recovery CD after I got a new motherboard. It thought I had stolen the cd and was trying to install it on another machine.