The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    windows reformat/repair help

    Discussion in 'Gateway and eMachines' started by Crazeman, Jun 29, 2007.

  1. Crazeman

    Crazeman Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    12
    Messages:
    195
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    my friend was playing around trying to install ubuntu on his gateway laptop today and were playing around with the parition stuff. he must of done something wrong (even though he unsuccessfully paritioned anything) because he can no longer boot into windows at all. we tried safe mode, last known configuration, etc but nothing works.

    what i'm hoping to do is to use a windows CD and repair his old installation of windows. he has some data he wants to save/keep so hopefully this will allow him to get into windows at least once to back everything up on my external hard drive. however i noticed that the gateway laptop doesn't really come with a windows installation CD, all i see is a operating disc and i'm afraid that it will just restore everything to the factory default hard drive. He has windows media center but unfortunately i only have a copy of windows xp pro, can a pro cd repair a windows media center installation?

    is there a guide or any sort on how to do this? i was poking around on these forums and some mentioned that you need the sata drivers to install windows but im not really sure.... is there a guide where it teaches you how to reformat a gateway notebook?i've done it plenty of times on other laptop/computers but the sata drivers kinda scare me off because i dont want to reformat only to find that i ****ed it up :p

    thanks for any help you guys have :)
     
    Crazeman, Jun 29, 2007
    #1
  2. Greg

    Greg Notebook Nobel Laureate

    Reputations:
    7,857
    Messages:
    16,212
    Likes Received:
    58
    Trophy Points:
    466
    What is the exact error you get when trying to boot into XP?
     
    Greg, Jun 29, 2007
    #2
  3. Crazeman

    Crazeman Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    12
    Messages:
    195
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    no error at all, i think i see a flash of a blue screen and it automatically restarts back to the gateway logo.

    when we try booting via safemode, it freezes when loading the paritions or something.
     
    Crazeman, Jun 29, 2007
    #3
  4. andyasselin

    andyasselin Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    140
    Messages:
    1,690
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55
    try press f8 bring up the boot menu for xp you sure be able pick disable auto matic restart and then can see blue screen
     
    andyasselin, Jun 29, 2007
    #4
  5. Crazeman

    Crazeman Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    12
    Messages:
    195
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    i can get to the blue windows setup screen but there is no repair option. theres an option to go into the system recovery console but i have no clue what to do in the command prompt.

    on some of the site, the repair option is supposed to come up after you agree to the license agreement but its not popping up (well windows setup isn't even recognizing his windows parition, it comes up as unknown rather than ntfs or fat32)

    is there some command prompt command i need to input to repair it manually?
     
    Crazeman, Jun 29, 2007
    #5