DAMN I HATE laptops, and OEMs!

randomJACKASS

randomJACKASS

Banned
I got a serious problem in working on a laptop, and I have posted at HWC and anandtech, but I am willing to bet at this point I'd be more likely be able to get some ideas here, because you people are just about all brighter than the average bulb in the pack, no matter your philosophy issues! Can YOU help me?

....This Gateway (newer Vista one) laptop will NOT boot from any source but its hard drive (and believe me I know my way around a BIOS). When you boot from the hard drive it simply blue screens, after it shows you the "Vista progress bar". It also blue screens if you try to use the recovery partition.

When I remove the hard drive it comes up with an "intel boot manager" that tells me check the cable and that there is no OS.

It does that no matter how I try to boot, and I have tried the internal DVD burner, which she assures me works, an external CD, and a flash drive set up with XP and still nothing. I have also tried it with each 512mb stick of memory singly and nothing changed.

I do note that when I try to boot from the DVD drive, it seems to try for a long time but then just goes to the hard drive with no message.

I have seen a CRAPLOAD of problems, but this one is new to me.....PLEASE, any help is appreciated!

Thanks!
Click to expand...

:banghead:
 
randomJACKASS

randomJACKASS

Banned
3951129458_c665912db4_o.jpg


So here is the advanced screen. I have tried everything I can think of here!
 
Professur

Professur

Well-Known Member
Most low end oem use stock chips tailored to their needs. With Legacy USB support enabled, you should be able to boot from a USB floppy or thumbdrive. My personal initial thought would be to yank the cmos battery, and with no powersupply attached, hold down the power button for 30 seconds to clear the cmos. Then pull whatever daughter cards you can .. NIC, modem, wifi .... optical drives too. Leave nothing but the keyboard, hd and screen.

I just finished with a thinkpad that was blue screening because of a wonky modem card. not my first suspect, I tell ya.
 
randomJACKASS

randomJACKASS

Banned
Something stupid just occurred to me, at least it seems dumb to me....

All of my external CD/DVD ROMs I currently have are IDE to USB. Could it be that it will only recognize a SATA to IDE?

I have tried more than one cato, but as I just said only IDE ones, but the one I have been using will boot my dell netbook.

Prof, you know the trouble with that is I cannot figure out how to get the battery out and guess what? It came off the motherboard!

Why the hell is every CMOS battery a puzle I almost always lose on?!?

I am afraid to pull cards and stuff, the more I dig the more it costs my friend, and cost is an issue. Plus laptops are terribly fragile!

The WLAN seems like it should be easy to get out, but the amount of force I am willing to apply does nothing to it. Anything more than that would require major disassembly, and that on a disposable piece of garbage to begin with!
 
catocom

catocom

Well-Known Member
it takes some doing to get me to even look at one, to work on.

does it have any built in like removable media drives?
 
randomJACKASS

randomJACKASS

Banned
No go....Here's something I don't know....When this boots to hard drive is the boot sector in the recovery partition? I never chkdsk /r'd that portion. I'm doing that now....

Still if that fixes it, it still leaves me baffled as to why no other boot source works....
 
catocom

catocom

Well-Known Member
hmm
Looks ok, but some of those bios's need which ever device you are trying
to boot from to be at the top.
I don't know why.

if trying to boot from usb stick device, I'd move it to the top and try it...
 
randomJACKASS

randomJACKASS

Banned
I have moved EVERTHING to the top. Being as there is nothing for USB CDROM I hvae disconnected the laptops DVD and hooked up an external with just about every option at the top and nothing! I begin to think it is just shitcan material.
 
catocom

catocom

Well-Known Member
the next option I'd try personally, is to flash the bios,
or first try setting to factory defaults, if you haven't already.
 
randomJACKASS

randomJACKASS

Banned
Done factory defaults and ho do you flash a bios when you can't boot? I *might* have a working SATA hard drive, and unless that works or someone comes up with a flash of genius I am about out of hope.
 
Luis G

Luis G

<i><b>Problemator</b></i>
Staff member
You probably did this already but move "built in hard drive to the bottom" of the list. Verify that your USB stick boots properly in another computer and if so, then try it on this one.

It *should* work on any port, but perhaps the version/puter only boots from a specific port, i'd try them all just to be sure.
 
randomJACKASS

randomJACKASS

Banned
OMG I think it's going to try to make me throw it across the room! But it won't succeed!

So I installed Vista on the new hard drive we ordered for it, but using my PC since it can't boot from anything but it's hard drive, and it says that it cannot load the 64 bit version of Vista because the machine isn't compatible!

Here is Newegg's page on it, and here is Gateway's own. It claims to be a core2 duo! Is there a such thing as a 32bit core2? Could those bastards have simply shut off any 64bit capability?

I am almost sure the idea of loading Vista with another machine will work, but is there any way for me to make a 64bit DVD of Windows only install the 32bit version, on a 64bit machine? Man this thing is an endless source of frustration!
 
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