starting from scratch with an old Gateway

[tex hick]

I've got an old Gateway that I'm giving away. In order to maintain my privacy, I ran killdisk on the h/d. I made a startup disk prior to killdisk. I've reformatted the h/d, but can't get the o/s to load. I have the original "system restore disk" and the original win98 disk. My cd drive (iomega zipcd 650) spools up, but I'm not sure the driver is there. Any help would be appreciated.

[GaryRouth]

Which disk would you prefer to run? If the Recovery Disk, you usually will have to option to completely reformat and restore to factory original, including re-creating any Gateway-specific partitions, if any.

You will need a working cd-drive: try entering Bios Setup and making sure the CD-ROM is the 1st Boot Device. Then try things again with the Recovery Disk. If you want to use the Win98 operating system CD, you'll have to create a Primary DOS Partition on the drive before starting (you'd boot with the CD "start system with CD-rom support", and use the utility "fdisk" to create the partition). The Recovery Disk, on the other hand, might work whether or not partitions are created or not (since I believe many such disks create their own). If you can't seem to reach the cd-drive, try booting with a bootdisk from http://www.bootdisk.com -- they've got fairly extensive generic cd-drivers on there (mostly from OakSys), and might do.

Let the next user of the computer know to have the antivirus running before connecting to the Internet, and to visit Windows Update right away for the Security Updates. Or you could update things ahead of time & make it easy for them.

Best of luck
. . . Gary

[diver203_98]

My Gateway System Restore CD set will set the partition its self, and you also have the option to go "Manual", "Advanced" as well, which is the way I go. But like Gary mentioned you will need the CD drive as first boot device to get your disks to start auto install either way you go. "Factory origional" or the Win98 CD. Good luck.

[tex hick]

I've checked the BIOS and the cd is the first boot. When I put either the system recovery or wind98 disk, I get the windows emblem for just a split second, then a black screen with the microsoft copyright message and a C:> prompt. Now what?

[GaryRouth]

Hi again

Not sure why you'd see the Windows 98 logo, only to end up at the C: prompt, if booting from a Win98 installation CD. If it truly is booting from the CD, you should first see a menu asking whether to boot from the hard drive or the CD, and if from the CD, it then asks whether you'd like to 1) Start Windows 98 Setup from the CD, 2) Start computer with cd-rom support, or 3) Start computer without cd-rom support.

Also, from what Gateways I've seen, you should see a menu.

I'm wondering if you have either a bootable floppy in the floppy drive, or did you use the "sys" command to copy over DOS system files to make the hard drive bootable when you reformatted the hard drive. In either of these two cases, you would end up at a command prompt. [if either of these are happening, it's also likely that even though you set the cdrom drive as the 1st boot device, the drive isn't functioning properly: it could be a problem with the jumpers on the drive, the cable, something amiss with the controller on the motherboard, or the drive itself is failing.]

Try entering your Bios Setup screens again, and set 1st boot to your floppy drive. Then use either the Win98 startup diskette you made just prior to running killdisk, or try a generic boot diskette from bootdisk.com. After booting with the floppy, see if you can access your cd-rom drive. If not, it's time to troubleshoot the drive. [Check the jumpers, cabling, try a different controller (-if so, change jumpers if necessary), or try a different cd-drive].

The exact order for starting Recovery Disks varies from model to model, even within the computers made by the same company. If you'd like us to double-check the procedure for yours, post your Gateway model # here, & we can check it out.

Hope it goes well
. . . Gary

[tex hick]

Ok, I think I may have done some things I shouldn't have last time. I ran killdisk again, ran fdisk from the bootable floppy. I can run dir from the "D" drive that the boot disk made and I see all the diagnostics. Now what? I have a floppy drive, a dvd drive, a zip drive and a CD drive. In the BIOS, I have the cd as the first boot device. Sorry, but I'm just not very good at this stuff.

The computer is a Gateway, model # LPMINI-TOWER TBR2 500 PIII, manufactured 5/10/99.

[edfair]

You should be running from the RAMDISK if you are at d:. Next step would be to format your hard drive, "format c:" and if it errors as file not found you would move to the proper location "cd ebd" and "format c:" again.

Assuming that works you would go to your CDROM "e:" and run the setup command "setup".

I'm hedging on the location of the format command. More problmes with old memory (mine).

[tex hick]

my bootdisk seems to be working fine. It makes a D drive ramdisk. I can format C drive. I bought a new "inexpensive" (cheap) cd burner....a Plextar CR-RW drive. In BIOS, it is recognized and set as first boot. When I have the boot disk in, it recognizes c but not e drive (drive e not ready). When I boot without the bootdisk, the message says system disk not recognized with either the system restoration or win98 disk. I'm going looking for my baseball bat shortly!!!!!!

[edfair]

No type A behaviour allowed. This site is approved for all ages. Means no violence.

What type of messages came up as the CD stuff was attempting to load from the boot floppy? There should have been some sort of error if it couldn't find the CD.

The 98EBD floppy gets about 99% of CDs and I have no reason to suspect this one, but it is possible that you got a dud.

[tex hick]

From the bootdisk:
The diagnostic tools were successfully loaded to drive D.

MSCDEX version 2.25
Copyright blah blah blah
Drive E: = driver MSCD001 unit 0

Then at the A:> promt I say E:

Then I get E:>
And anything I type I get

CDR101: Not ready reading drive E
Abort, Retry, Fail?

[edfair]

Bad drive , dirty innards. A failure there of some sort. Sorry.

Couldn't pass up the try at humor.

[glc]

Possibly a bad IDE cable on the burner, or incorrectly jumpered.

[edfair]

Probably too glib at that assessment. There are other possibilities regarding bad stuff in the operating system but the CD is a 99%+ probablility.

[tex hick]

It was working fine before I did killdisk. Just like that....pppffftttt? And I have the system restoartion disk and the win98 disk. The odds of BOTH disks being bad are too big to accept. I'll check the jumper connections and the cables. Thanks

[edfair]

There is another message that comes during driver loads during config.sys. Should tell you what kind of drive you are using and should confirm that the IDE channel is reading and what kind of drive you have. That would confirm that the data path is good.

You didn't "type A" it and shake loose some dust?

Have a cleaning disk available?

[GRP]

You Iomega zip CD will not work without special drivers added to your autoexec.bat and config.sys on you boot CD. Now your new Plextor should work fine. You can always add the driver to the boot CD's Autoecec.bat file.
Maybe you damaged the master boot record of you hard drive when using this killdisk. Try at the prompt "FDISK/MBR" This should repair your master boot record. You may have to restart your computer. Check your partition info with the command "FDISK", select the number for verifing info. Make sure all is well. Exit FDISK and format, donot use the /s just "format c:"

[tex hick]

A friend rerouted the IDE cables and made the CD a primary right off the m/b. That way I didn't need the drivers to make it work (I guess). Fired it up, it recognized the cd drive, and I got the os loaded. Thanks for everyone's help. I am not an apt pupil, but I am relentless. I'll be back..........

[GaryRouth]

tex - glad you got everything fixed moving the cables. A standard IDE optical drive won't need special drivers, they're built-in to Windows. There are still some older non-standard drives out there (like some of the Iomega's, like GRP mentions), for which you have to track down the proprietary drivers.
. . . Gary