Beyond Repair?

[Guest]

2002 Gateway Laptop with it's share of problems. Had been thinking about
reformatting the hard drive as of even this morning...which is exactly when
it decided to die.

None of the buttons on the keypad respond, so I have to manually unplug the
battery and power outlet to turn it off. Then, upon "turning" it back on, it
goes to the "Gateway" start up screen, at which point none of the function
keys work, it doesn't recognize my Windows XP Home disk, and really is a
$2000 paperweight right now.

I'm not even sure how to go about starting this one, as I'd like to think of
myself as fairly versed on computers...but laptops are a little tricky to
play around with. Any suggestions?

 

[David H. Lipman]

From: "maxcavsm" <[email protected]>

| 2002 Gateway Laptop with it's share of problems. Had been thinking about
| reformatting the hard drive as of even this morning...which is exactly when
| it decided to die.
|
| None of the buttons on the keypad respond, so I have to manually unplug the
| battery and power outlet to turn it off. Then, upon "turning" it back on, it
| goes to the "Gateway" start up screen, at which point none of the function
| keys work, it doesn't recognize my Windows XP Home disk, and really is a
| $2000 paperweight right now.
|
| I'm not even sure how to go about starting this one, as I'd like to think of
| myself as fairly versed on computers...but laptops are a little tricky to
| play around with. Any suggestions?

Get a Dell Latitude or Inspiron or an IBM ThinkPad next time !

 

[Guest]

If you have a desktop with a floppy drive, create a boot floppy. It will
just have the few files needed to boot it to the Command Prompt. From
there you may be able to access the harddrive in Safe Mode and/or format it
and do a clean install of XP. Or access the BIOS to set it to boot from the
CD drive with your XP disk.
"How to Boot in Safe Mode"
http://www.columbia.edu/acis/capture/safemode.html

Accessing Motherboard BIOS
http://michaelstevenstech.com/bios_manufacturer.htm

 

[Guest]

Byte:
The OEM screen comes up, and it lists which buttons to push to enter the
BIOS...it's just not responding to any of them. Not even holding in the
power button causes it to do anything.

 

[Guest]

Max, take a look at the below website for possible help. It looks like
it may help you solve your problem. BTW, plug the PC into an AC power
outlet, your batteries may be shot.
Bart's Preinstalled Environment (BartPE) bootable live windows CD/DVD

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/