Recovery Media Zero out hdd p6860fx

I've messed with my computer a lot, including installing and uninstalling many programs and operating systems. I even edited my registry without having any idea what i was doing. I just want to start over from factory defaults. I got the 20$ recovery media in 2 dvds, and when I try to use them they stop on a big gateway logo with a blank window that's titled "dialog." I was wondering if anyone knew what i could do. I was thinking if i just zeroed out my hhd that maybe the dvds would work but if they still don't i would be screwed. My computer works ok still, just really slow and gotta restart a lot. I tried to use the gateway recovery center but it tells me to restart in order to restore factory defaults but after it restarts nothing happens. I'm not ready to spend the 60$ on answers by gateway just yet. Any help would be GREAT!!!

 

You didn't have a recovery partition on your hard drive already? Hmm, you should have. The DVDs are probably to be used when you boot up. You'll need to make sure your BIOS is set to boot from the DVD (it'll say CD) before the hard drive.

 

What are the contents of your DVD's? The P6860-FX normally shipped with an OS DVD. The recovery DVD you had to make yourself from data on the recovery partition. If you try to install from the recovery DVD first, it wouldn't work, you need to install the OS first.

Another possibility is that the DVD isn't being read properly. When my drive gives me read errors, I take the DVD out, clean it and the drive spindle, and re-insert the DVD. If the screen freezes before the DVD boots, then I would tend to believe it has nothing to do with your HDD. You could always take out the HDD and try booting the DVD to confirm, you should still get to an install screen of some kind, even without an HDD installed.

 

The dvd boots up fine, it starts by "loading windows files" then goes to a vista loading bar, then goes to a big gateway logo with a blank screen, all of this is from the dvd. which i got from https://secure.tx.acer.com/RCDB/Main.aspx?brand=gateway On the dvd it reads "To reinstall the operating system, programs and drivers, insert the dvd and restart then follow on screen instructions. Warning this will erase all data on the drives." I should be seeing everything in this order http://support.gateway.com/s/software/MICROSOF/vista/7515910/7515910su3.shtml but at step 6 i just get a blank window. I can't think of a reason why the dvd would boot to this point then stop, the disc isn't scratched or dirty, could it be a courupted file somewhere, im going to try and update my bios but idk what to do, i just want to start over.

 

I read about someone who also had a installation problem, i think my bios might be screwed up. Not like it wont boot to dvd, cause that's easy and not the problem. Does anyone know where I can get the original bios from or an updated version?

 

There's a thread here with updated 6860 BIOS, but it's not a sticky so you'll have to search for it. The Gateway support site has the original BIOS.

 

It could be a problem with the BIOS, but before I re-flashed the BIOS, I would try installing a different OS: XP if you have it, or Linux from a live CD which you can download free online. I would suspect bad disks or disks incompatible with your drive before I would a corrupt BIOS.

 

yeah ive tried the disks on another computer and got the same problem, they arn't dirty or scratched at all so idk how the disk got bad, but im having one hell of a time trying to get gateway to replace them.