Accessing recovery partition on Gateway laptop

[Planefreak]

I know most of you read the title thinking that should be in the Laptop/mobile section but it is here for a reason.

So, I got this Gateway laptop that someone really really really screwed up. They got a virus and tried to fix it without knowing what they were doing and ended up trying to restore the laptop. In doing so they turned it off just after erasing the drive. When I looked at the drive, I found that none of the files had been written. Not even the boot manager.

How can I access the recovery partition? I tried ctrl + F11 and just F11, and tried with an unbranded copy of vista.

Suggestions please

[glc]

Model of the laptop, please...........

Have you downloaded the manual for it?

[Planefreak]

Oops, sorry, I meant to put the model at the bottom but spaced it.

It is a Gateway model no. MA7.

I haven't downloaded the manual for it.

[EzyStvy]

Well - download the manual - post a link back here to where the manual is and what page in the manual that tells what keys to press. We'll then post the needed info back

[Planefreak]

http://support.gateway.com/s/Manuals...ps/8513015.pdf

Page 23. Press ALT + F10.

Why I didn't bother in the first place... It takes me to the boot menu then boots the os. Never enters any recovery program.

Any ideas that don't require wasting 30 minutes on crappy support pages?

[Panama Red]

Page 23 talks about Recovery Disks not a Recovery Partition. Looks to me like you'll need to pull their hdd and connect it to another pc to recover/save their personal files. You'll need an adapter to connect the drive unless it's a sata hdd. In that case, you could connect it internally in a desktop machine and recover the files there. Once the files are saved, use the Recovery Disks (the owner should have them as they came with the pc) to reload back to original. They will have to reload all their peripherals and programs and you'll have to transfer the files back.

[Planefreak]

I agree, the only problem is that they don't have the recovery discs or they were supposed to make them and never did. I've already backed up their files to my hard drive.

[Panama Red]

Do you have an OEM version disk of the OS on that laptop? You can load XP, Vista etc using an OEM disk and use the Product Key off the bottom of the lappy. You'll then have to download the drivers from Gateway. The OS should activate without any issues - worse case, you may have to call the MS automated phone number to complete the activation. I use a slipstreamed copy of XP SP3 to load XP Home and Pro all the time. And I have a Vista Ultimate disk (both 32 & 64 bit) to load any version of Vista.

[Planefreak]

I was thinking about doing that. I was hoping I could find a gateway disc at a second hand store and reloading it but so far no luck. I've already loaded an unbranded (just regular vista not related to gateway, dell, etc...) and that works fine.