Tina Norris Fields
tinanfields at torchlake.com
Thu Aug 28 14:57:31 CDT 2008
Helmut, Vielen Dank! I am downloading the Ultimate Boot CD now. You are not going to believe what I found out, though. The problem of Gateway freezing during a system recovery turns out to be a know difficulty with the Intel SpeedStep. This must be disabled in the BIOS before a successful system recovery can be accomplished. Here are the step-by-step instructions from Gateway: 1. Turn on the computer and begin pressing the F2 key in one-second intervals. If you perform this step correctly, you see the BIOS Setup Utility menu. If Windows loads normally, repeat this step. 2. In the BIOS Setup Utility, press the RIGHT ARROW key to select the Advanced menu. 3. On the Advanced menu, change the Intel SpeedStep setting from Enabled to Disabled. 4. Press the RIGHT ARROW key to select the Exit menu. 5. On the Exit menu, select Save Changes and Exit 6. Restart the computer and run System Restore. 7. After completing the recovery, download and install the Critical Update for Windows XP (KB885626) package from the Microsoft Web site. 8. Once the KB885626 package is installed, re-enable Intel SpeedStep in the BIOS Setup Utility. Once I disabled SpeedStep, I was able to carry out the complete system recovery, putting the little computer back to its fresh-from-the-factory status. Is this not amazing? Furthermore, I believe I now know what really happened. My guess is that when the owner's sister booted the computer and saw the message "Press F11 for system recovery" which is presented for a couple of seconds, she did. She pressed F11, thinking she was being instructed to, not recognizing the message as meaning "if you need to run system recovery press F11." Then, because of the SpeedStep issue, which hangs the computer during setup, from then on the computer didn't work. If I had known about this SpeedStep issue, my job would have been a great deal easier and shorter. Disable SpeedStep in the BIOS, then run System Recovery. Done! Thought I would share my findings with all my colleagues. Thanks again to both you and Fred who responded, Tina Helmut Kotsch wrote: > You should google for "Ultimate Boot CD": This will give you a large > selection of free downloadable CD-images that containing a lot of useful > utilities. Everybody working with PC's should have one of these CD's > available. > > Helmut > > -----Ursprungliche Nachricht----- > Von: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com > [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]Im Auftrag von Tina Norris > Fields > Gesendet: Donnerstag, 28. August 2008 17:20 > An: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues > Betreff: [dba-Tech] Bootable CD for WinXP? > > > Hi, > > I'm trying to bring back to life a little Gateway laptop that somehow no > longer boots to Windows XP. Here's what little I know of the history of > its going bad: It was last used to play a game called Roller Coaster > Tycoon (which had been played on that machine many times before), then > nobody used it for about a week. At that time it would no longer boot. > > When I got a look at it, it was trying to run setup, and hung at the > same spot every time the machine was powered on. Absolutely no response > to anything. The only way to get out of the frozen screen was to power > off. So, I tried the system recovery trick. The recovery runs and > displays the message screen that the system has been successfully > recovered. WinXP appears to try to start, then switches to WinXP Setup > with "please wait" and the hourglass, and hangs there. Tried booting to > Safe Mode, got the message that Setup cannot run in Safe Mode. > > Tried the full system recovery, the one that scratches everything and > starts over. Again, appeared to fully recover, began the setup process > anew. I did all this about nine times. There were two places the > process was likely to hang - 1) at the point where Setup is installing > devices, would get about halfway along the progress bar and hang - 2) if > it made it through the installing of devices, it got to performing final > tasks Register Components, about a third of the way on the progress bar > and hang. A couple of times, it did the "one or more of your disks may > have errors on it" and checked for errors, never finding any. But, > oddly enough it was checking disk D: > > In desperation, I took my bootable Win98 install disk and - after making > sure the boot sequence would check the CD first - put it in and > restarted the computer, thinking I could at least install Win98. This > resulted ultimately in the message that there was no hard disk present. > Looking in the BIOS, under the Standard tab I find Pri Master [IDE HDD], > Sec Master [CD/DVD], under the Boot tab I find 1st Boot Device [CD/DVD], > 2nd Boot Device [FDD], and 3rd Boot Device [IDE HDD]. > > I have an emergency WinXP startup floppy diskette for my machine, so I > thought maybe I could copy it onto a CD and have an emergency WinXP > startup CD. But, that does not seem to work. Can anybody tell me how > to make a bootable (not Autorun) CD so I can at least have some portion > of a system alive for looking around in that machine? > > Oh, of course, before you ask - no she does not have any idea where her > original disks are that came with the machine. Of course not. As I > consider the life this little machine has had, I can't help wondering if > it's been dropped or something and the C: drive MBR is destroyed - and > whether there's any point in trying anything more with this poor little > laptop. > > TIA for any advice. > > Tina > > > > _______________________________________________ > dba-Tech mailing list > dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com > > _______________________________________________ > dba-Tech mailing list > dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com > >