P-7811FX Open Box Purchase

Hey everyone and E-wrecked!
My brother just came back from the BestBuy in NY with a purchased P-7811FX, opened box. Great deal, somewhere around 1300$ with tax.
Once I get home, I read through the booklets, blablabla. Then I open up the laptop, it shuts down... O.K. Turn it on again and it starts up properly. Then I look around for a little while and I notice 3 things.
1- I don't have any CDs. (Stipulates in packaged paper that it should include an Operating System CD) (Gateway sent me the recovery CD + DVDs)
2- I don't have any "Gateway Recovery" feature. FIXED (Using Paragon Partition Manager, I set the recovery partition as active, making it boot in recovery mode.)
3- I only see 80GB of HDD and I don't know what to do. FIXED (The HDD had 80GB unallocated)

Hope you guys can help. Thanks.

 

Hmm..sounds like you may need to contact that BB. Can you boot windows? Sounds like it. If so, run Disk Management to see what your hard drive looks like..maybe you're just seeing one partition. Click Windows Start Icon-> type in msconfig and hit enter. Then accept whatever warning it gives you. The far right tab is "Tools". Go there, then click the "computer management" option and click launch. In the new window, the left pane should contain "storage" and disk management is under that section. Click it, and make sure you don't have a 80 GB hard drive, that some schmuck swapped out and returned. Or, just open the hard drive bay on the bottom side of the notebook and examine the HDD itself to make sure its a 200GB seagate. Sounds to me like you may just not have the 2nd partition formatted.

 

Gateway P7811 splits their "200" gb hard drive to two 80gb partitions. You would probably have to use a program to partition that second 80gb in order to use it. Afterwards, do a fresh install and download the new drivers from the Gateway.com website.

 

I'll try that E-wrecked. Yes I can boot windows, I'm typing from the laptop itself right now.

I wish JBN, but how do I do a fresh install?

Is there supposed to be any CDs that come with the 7811?

 

zub, you should have one cd with it..the windows 32bit/64bit OS CD..but it doesnt include all the gateway stuff. Just the vista install with basic drivers. Lemme know if you have any other partitions in disk management..you likely have a restore partition then you can do the gateway restore and then creat whatever cds you need.

 

Two things.

1. An open box item will likely be missing some accessories such as CDs.

2. There is no way I'd buy a 7811 open box. If someone returned that laptop it was for a reason. Wait for it to go on sale again and get a new one for the same price.

 

This is what I got: Storage Management

1. My brother bought it for me while he was in NY, he didn't know if something was missing because he's not experienced with computers.

2. This laptop was the last one my brother could find around where he was. I prefer having it now, testing it and seeing if it's good than waiting and not being able to ever get one. I thought the same way as you at first, but this laptop could've been returned by someone who's not good with computers and didn't manage well with driver updates and/or cooling techniques.

 

it looks like it was someone who managed to delete their personal info from the rig. Then attempted to re-install windows.. it also looks like you may have the recovery partition. Reboot the computer, and I believe it is F10 that you have to hit.. Hit it repeatedly, or try F8..one of these will give you the option to restore your computer to original specs. Do you not have the gateway recovery mgmt under your start menu? If not..then no worries..you have the partition. Just keep tapping F10..if that doesnt work, keep tapping F2, or F8.. F8 goes to windows safe mode, which may offer the option to restore to factory specs. That's your easiest way to solve this problem. And just let it do it's thing.

EDIT: Well, tried for you, myself.. F8 brings up restore option, which i dont think is what you are lookin for..check out the 7811FX Drivers thread. I know it should have all you need.

 

When I start the PC, it shows that F2=BIOS Settings and F10=Boot Start.
I did both options before and F2 showed me the BIOS informartion and F10 prompted me to select "Boot Disk".

EDIT: I just finished updating to the BIOS you provided. (9c.08.00)

 

Zub, just use your search bar..it will be very beneficial. If you have an extremely oddball question then have at it. Otherwise, do some work.

 

Well, if it still has the "Gateway" Vista installation (You go to Windows Welcome Center and still see the "Gateway" logo as well as support), then you should still have the Gateway Recovery Manager and be able to use that to create the driver disk as well as the ghost image of the computer.

 

Eurasianman, I tried everything to possibly find a trace of anything "Gateway" but I haven't succeeded. I'm planning on contacting BestBuy and maybe Gateway as well to see if they could assist me with this missing CD issue.

E-wrecked, I searched the forums thoroughly and I only post once I haven't found anything. You asked me to see if I had another partition and I found it, but I don't know what to do with it because I'm scared if I format it I'll delete any Gateway files that may be necessary.

 

can you post a screen shot of disk management? And check your Hard Drive..you should have a folder c:\acer, but it's hidden so you'll need to make sure hidden files can be viewed, via control panel-> files and folders options.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=309925#7

No acer folder found.

 

Your recovery partition is still there. All you need to do is set that recovery partition active and reboot. The recovery partition will load.

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/0260f433-b882-4d26-8d54-90f4e7cd1ffd1033.mspx

The recovery partition is that 10gb EISA one. Btw, make sure to clear any administration passwords. Recovery requires admin login to restore the computer.

 

ktr, I thought I was so close to victory, but then only help showed up.

http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/8210/hddrightclickef3.jpg

EDIT: I downloaded Paragon Partition Manager which offers me more options like setting a partition as active. Will give you some news.

 

Yes, that would have been my second recommendation is to use a 3rd party disk manager, like norton partition magic, or acronis disk director. I work for a computer retail company, and we do get returns of gateway that has issue accessing the recovery partition. I use a 3rd party disk manager to active the recovery partition to restore. If memory servers me right, after restore...you might have to change the active partition back to c drive.

 

zub, just try using F11 after the post screen..and see if that doesn't bring you into recovery.

 

E-wrecked, F11 didn't do anything but I tried F8 (from Gateway's support site "Full Factory Recovery") and it showed me this: http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/4915/repairyourcomputerlq6.gif, thing is "Repair Your Computer" didn't appear.

I still have to try what ktr said, setting the 10GB partition as active.

 

Gateway was very nice and sent me the Recovery CD + DVDs after I informed them of the missing Gateway Recovery Center. I was happy, but my freaking CD Drive had just stopped reading CDs a couple of days before. Using Paragon Partition Manager, I was able to set a drive letter to that mysterious 10GB partition. Miraculously, it had the recovery partition! Like E-wrecked had mentioned, it contains Acer folders. I don't know what to do with it, except I can still try setting that partition as active like ktr suggested; the partition is called PQSERVICE by the way.

If I set it as active will I be able to set the C: partition back as active without having to recover my system? Because I didn't back up my files yet.

 

Just a heads up on the partition issue. Vista actually has a very effective, and built-in partition manager, and when I owned the fx p-7811 I had to use it because the 200gb hard drive was partitioned into 2 equal parts (C:/OS and D:/ Data) When I would load a program it would automatically load onto the OS portion. I eventually was able to use the partition tool to just eliminate the Data partition as it was useless.

***I cant post the url for the step-by-step since I dont have more than 15 posts, but just Google "Vista Partition Manager" to find the guides***

Oh yeah, and my purchase was an open box from Best Buy. It did come with a gateway labled install disk, but never got to use it before I returned the computer with a fuzzy white horizontal video problem and they didnt have another anywhere. I ended up ordering a p-7801u from newegg and it is a great machine.

 

Just a heads up on the partition issue. Vista actually has a very effective, and built-in partition manager, and when I owned the fx p-7811 I had to use it because the 200gb hard drive was partitioned into 2 equal parts (C:/OS and D:/ Data) When I would load a program it would automatically load onto the OS portion. I eventually was able to use the partition tool to just eliminate the Data partition as it was useless.

Do a google search for Vista Partition Manager and find a guide explaining it.

Oh yeah, and my purchase was an open box from Best Buy. It did come with a gateway labled install disk, but never got to use it before I returned the computer with a fuzzy white horizontal video problem and they didnt have another anywhere. I ended up ordering a p-7801u from newegg and it is a great machine.

 

Nice double post

 

vista partition didn't for for me for some reason. i'd recommend using a third-party Acronis software, in case Vista doesn't work for you either.

 

Yeah I am a newb. So I couldnt use the link I included and they made me redo it. I am lucky. Could have been a Octo-post! I hate spammers such as myself. I will refrain from posting for 2 days for my pennance. Amen.

 

Oh, and I wouldnt give up on that Vista Partition Manager Mimino, It worked for me but didnt seem very intuitive the first time. I think you have to delete the partition you arent using, then expand the C:/OS partition. It seemed to take an extra step.

 

could be, but i didn't feel like wasting my time to figure it out