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Horrible trouble with recovering a new Gateway GT4010

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Polishwonder74

Senior member
This is just about the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. So, it seems that new computers don't really ship with recovery CD's anymore, the recovery data is kept on a little partition on the hard drive. That's cool, I guess. No CD to lose, and everything. But now I have a really nasty problem.

I managed to corrupt some Windows files, and was looking to nuke it real fast and be done with it. It's just a couple months old, so I didn't have a ton installed, so a straight-up nuke would have been pretty easy. So I backed up all my stuff, and went to do the recovery thing, and it's asking me for CD's. I noticed that there is a utility for making them, but it's not working (probably because it's got one foot in the grave after I goofed it up).

I ran the sfc /scannow utility in XP, and it needed to reinstall a couple of files, but it's asking for CD's, too! It looks like I'm totally stuck, and will have to install my own copy of Windows unless you guys know something that I don't. I went through all the tech support I could find at the Gateway website and none of their suggestions helped. Doing my own install would take considerably longer, plus I don't think I can even use the CD key that is currently on this computer because it is more than likely an OEM key, and I don't have a Gateway OEM copy of Windows Media Center.

On new Dell computers you can nuke them totally from the backup partition and don't need CD's at all, so it looks like at least they got it right.

What do you guys think I should do? Thanks for your help.

:beer:
 
Is the HD partition with the .cab files hidden?
I.E. can you see it from with XP? Does it have a drive letter?
 
It has a drive letter, and the files are mostly hidden (but I have 'show hidden files' on). I was thinking maybe I could like, save thise whole partition as an ISO, burn it to a disc, and hope that the files that it needs are in there somewhere, but my guess is that won't work either.

What a pisser.
 
Ok, take a breath. A few things: First of all, did you try using XP's System Restore? Hopefully you haven't turned that off.

Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools/System Restore

Secondly, as far as SFC /scannow goes, the CD prompt is because it's looking for the I386 folder. You need to edit the registry to tell it what drive the I386 folder is on. Note: Not the complete path, just the drive. Read this:

Your computer needs to know that you now have the necessary files on your PC. This is done by editing the registry. Here's how: (type regedit in the Run box on the start menu)

By navigating to:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionSetup

You will see various entries here on the right hand side.

The one we want is called: SourcePath

It probably has an entry pointing to your CD-ROM drive,(usually D🙂 and that is why it is asking for the XP CD. All we need to do is change it to: C: Now, double click the SourcePatch setting and a new box will pop up allowing you to make the change to the drive letter of your root drive, probably C: (Hopefully there's an I386 folder there. If not, try setting it to the recovery partition drive letter, if there is one).

Now restart your computer and try sfc /scannow again!

Now, about Gateway recovery:

http://assets.gateway.com/s/SOFTWARE/Medialess//MLXPH2/MLXPH2asi.shtml
 
On the extra partition, is there a directory named "i386"?
If so, edit the registry to use that instead of looking for a CD.
In the registry, go to: HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version and set the SourcePath key to point to the partition directory.
This way when you run SFC it will not ask you for a CD but will got to the partition.

😉
 
Kinda like what I said above, KGBman, although I should have been more specific about the hidden partition drive letter.

OP should check to see if he has an I386 folder on the C: drive, as well, though. My folks have a PC that has one of those hidden recovery partitions, and they also have an I386 folder on the C: drive.
 
Slik,

I was too slow on the post.
Also, I forgot the SETUP key after Current Version.

I hate getting old. 😱
 
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