Gateway Won't Boot Up

Maybe someone could help out, so thought I would try this forum first. Here is the deal:

I have a Gateway laptop that isn't quite 2 years old (doing this from work and can't remember the model). I made a change to my home's wireless network last week and changed the router. For some reason, after doing this, it hosed up my laptop. When I set up this wireless network, the instructions I read at the time talked about using the network wizard to make a configuraiton disk, which I installed on laptop. Everything was working fine with this laptop, until I swapped network.

Cutting to the chase, I paid for a 1/2 hour of Gateway support (although I bought at Best Buy) to see if they could help me resolve the issue. The issue is that on bootup, keeps going to DOS screen saying errors in loading, with the options of going to Safe Mode, last good coniguration etc. At that time, I could get into Safe Mode, that is all. Tried all different things to get working, still same error. I was worried about losing all the files on hard drive, since this is my wifes laptop and we use if for our finances and of course, a backup of that file hasn't been made in a long time (another story). Gateway supports suggestion was to remove the hard drive and replace with a new one, then use the restore disk to set up the system like brand new again, then I can transfer my files, set up programs, etc. Well, this didn't work either, same freaking error!!!! Plus, I can't even get into Safe Mode now either!!!!

Like I said, this laptop isn't even 2 years old and my wifes uses if for the bills, surfing the web and email, that is it. I don't want to spend a lot more money, since I just bought a new iMac a few weeks back.

The only thoughts I have are as follows, since I think Gateway's support is lacking.
1. Take it to Best Buy and let the Geek Squad fix it, but how much will that cost?
2. Get a "clean' version of Windows XP and install that instead of the Gateway version of XP.
3. Request a new restore disk from Gateway.
4. A friend of mine said he had something simlar happen to him at work and the techs said that the old configurations were "locked" in memory. Swap out memory??
5. Blow the thing up and never go near a Gateway again!

Any suggestions would be great!

 

Well...i'm kinda already looking toward your friend's input on this issue, but i would believe that after taking the RAM out of the laptop (which isn't hard at all) the RAM will reset it's memory to nothing or whatever u know, and yea the gateway xp home edition cd is a pos. seriously, i hate the software that they put on your second partition even though it works half the time, using a clean installation should work, but i have no idea why gateway wanted you to swap out hard-drives...doesn't make any sense, nothing should have corrupted anything on ur hard-drive for one. but furthermore, that best buy geeksquad will charge u up the butt for anything to do with repairs. that's where the money rolls in for them...they just probably obtain ur whole hard drives info reinstall the same windows os and put ur info back on (from what i hear and know of), but other than that, i have never heard of a network problem doing this to a pc....maybe virus? (maybe that's why possibly gateway thought of swapping hard drives out..hmm..) anyways..i know how hard it is getting posts right away, so i tried my best. wish good luck to ur gateway.

 

Thanks for reply dp.

Not sure if removing memory will clear out problem, sounds kind of hokey. I put a call in to a friend here at work who is a tech and maybe he can help resolve. I think Gateway thought by removing hard drive and replacing, then running setup on a clean drive would eliminate problem. At least I got a new backup harddrive (used conversion kit to create a backup). Was able to move critical files we needed to my Mac for now.

I've never been crazy about any of these "customized" XP installs that various manufacturers use. On my old desktop (Sony Vaio), they had the same thing and it blows, but did the trick. I would just hate to go and by XP to fix the Gateway and find out this didn't fix the issue, then I'm stuck with software I can't return. Then again, if this Gateway is totally trashed, could install "clean' XP on replacment for my wife. I think I may go the Dell route this time. Not sure yet, just don't want to spend a fortune on fixing this.

Thanks again for reply.