Each PC manufacturer has a different way to handle such things. Some
provide real CDs, but other porovide CDs that only contain small programs
that cause a hidden partition of data on the hard drive to be used to
restore C:\.
Your best bet is to contact Gateway support. As a minimum they should be
able to tell you how to restore the PC to the day you bought it. They owe
you that. As for getting the PC working without completing the restore,
Gateway might be able to help. Ask then whether what you did so far
formatted the hard drive, or deleted partitions, etc. If yes, the odds of
fixing are very small, other than to complete the restoration process.
But, be aware that there are some third-party programs that can unformat a
disk or restore lost partitions. These work only if nothing has been
written to the hard drive since the format or the partition delete. Note
that a long-format does write to the disk, but a short format only erases
the pointers to files. Gateway should know which, if either, their
restoration CD invokes. A local PC repair shop might know about these and
for a small diagnostic fee might be able to tell you whether there is some
hope.
You might alos learn something by Goggling "parititon undelete".
As for the use of an XP CD to examine the hardware, if it was provided by a
different PC maker, it might be specific to the hardware of that other PC.
That is, not all XP CDs are equal. For example, SATA hard drive controllers
require special drivers. A PC maker may include those with their XP CD.
But, those drivers will only work on their hardware, not on a random PC. In
contrast, the full retail verison of XP provides no such drivers, but
provides the option to hit F6 and load them from a floppy (yes a floppy, not
a CD).
A way to get around the limitations of XP CDs is to download and burn a
"live" LINUX CD. "Live" means that LINUX will run from the CD, without
installing anything on the hard drive. KNOPPIX is among the best,
supporting most hardware, and has a windows-like (really MAC-like)
interface. It is free, but it is a large download, about 700 Meg. Be sure
to burn to a CD using a program like Nero or Easy CD Creator, which supports
"burn from image" or similar. Do not simple drag&drop the ISO file to a CD.
That won't work. Links to KNOPPIX:
http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html
http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Main_Page
http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Rescue_FAQ
If KNOPPIX can see the disks, then they have some normal format (e.g.,
FAT32, NTFS). If it can see data, then they have not been reformated. If
it can see data, then it can also recover data, by simply copying to an
external hard drive (USB or firewire), flash drive, ZIP, etc. KNOPPIX also
comes with a CD burner.
If KNOPPIX does not see the disks, then they may have temporarily be give
some unusual format. More likely the format bit in the boot record was
changed as part of the restoration process. Some software does this to
prevent other programs from operating on the disk while they are using it.
In such a case a solution can be to fix that format bit. I would suggest a
good PC repair shop. But, there are programs on the web that offer to do
this, for power users who know what they are doing.
