o memorSeveral Gateway related questions.

[Gustavus]

A young couple we know have a Gateway model 510 computer with respectable specs: Windows XP Home, Pentium 4 3GHz, 512Meg RAM, etc. which has suddenly developed lots of problems.

I have built many computers, but my experience does not include experience with Gateway machines.

It appears their Windows is corrupted. The search function does not search, clicking on Start then Programs does not open the directory of Programs, although I can get there by opening the C directory and then opening program files etc. It is impossible to update to SP-2 since it stops during the system scan and reports unable to load installer for HDC etc. It also stopped recognizing the printer that was working.

OK, I thought, I will run a Windows repair using their Gateway OS installation disk. At first it demanded a password which they of course did not know, but I used Winternals Lockpick to reset to a blank password (not good for security, but I can change that later) and ran a repair. No changes were made and of course all of the problems are still there. I then ran sfc /scannow to repair (?) all of the files with no changes -- and no improvement either.

First question, do any of you know from first hand experience whether a Gateway machine will run with an install of a non Gateway Windows XP. I am considering taking one of my spare harddrives and installing Windows XP on it and swapping it for their C drive. My wife had a Dell when we were married and it wouldn't allow that -- some bit of code buried in a ROM detected it was not the expected flavor of Windows and balked.

I tried installing one of my printers, and ran into the same "unable to load installer for HDC". The printer works fine with multiple machines of mine -- just not theirs. I even downloaded the latest drivers but to no avail.

The BIOS is strange to me. Very limited in what it offers. I wanted to set it to boot from the CD instead of the HD so I could boot from the Winternals boot CD and didn't see the usual menu items allowing you to choose what to boot from first, second etc. It might be there, but I didn't see it. Not much in the way of BIOS controls. No memory timing settings at all, no FSB settings that I could see -- although for what I am trying to do neither of these are of any interest. It is just unusual to see a motherboard with virtually no user accessible controls. I knew there was some reason I have never bought a built up computer in my life.

Any help or suggestions would be much appreciated. I would like to help them get their machine back to working, but am not making much headway thus far.

 

[Slowlearner]

I dont think there are too many people on AT forums using Gateway computers. There seems to be quite a lot of documentation available at Gateway's site on the 510 model. I would start with the basic manual : support.gateway.com/s/Manuals/Desktops/310/9524975.pdf. Though the problems you describe are common to pcs allowed to to go seed - case full of dust, no windows updates, full of spyware and other malware, missing SP2, AV rarely updated that is if a currently licensed version is installed etc. etc. You need to backup useful data or clone the hd, do the usual maint.( get updates, run scans in safe mode), run a chkdsk on the hd, and if and only if that does not fix the problem re-install - for that you will need the drivers disk in addition to XP cd (see manual).

 

[Gustavus]

Slowlearner

Thanks for the reply. You were right in that the machine had been neglected badly. It was infested with all sorts of malware which I removed (?) with AVG Security Suite, SpyBot and XoftSpy SE. They did not have a firewall and the subscription for their Norton anti-virus had expired. The registry was a mess as well and the hard disk was the most fragmented I have ever seen. I cleaned the registry using RegCure and jv16 Power Tools and made several defragmentation passes with Raxco Perfect Disk. None of this fixed any of the problems, but it now boots and runs as snappy as a new machine. The hard disk is only about 25% full. There were lots of programs installed that they did not know where they came from -- they have a teen age daughter who has used the machine to browse the internet, so there was p2p software, links to all sorts of music and game sites etc. I will recommend they purchase the latest version of Zone Alarm which now has the Kaspersky anti-virus, a respectable anti-spyware and a very good firewall -- plus anti spam for their e-mail. That is after I get the computer to working.

I tried running the XP version of chkdsk, but like so many Windows related functions on this machine, after a long period of scanning it aborted with a message that Windows could not complete the scan -- not that it found errors, but that it could not complete the scan. I may load Norton Systemworks and run disk doctor -- or at least try to run it. The reason I haven't done that so far is that I consider Symantec software worse than most virus's and just as hard to get off of a machine. If the computer had a second hard drive I would make a drive image using Acronis True Image.

I could not link to the manual using the link you gave. The message says that the link may have been removed. A long search at Gateway failed to find a manual for the Custom HSN 510 MC machine -- and they do not have a manual (naturally).

I have a spare 160 GB hard drive in the lab, so in the morning I am going to pull their hard drive, install my drive and try a clean install of Windows XP Pro with SP2. They had Windows XP Media Center 2004 which I don't have and am unfamiliar with any way.

They are a nice couple and don't have the money to get the machine worked on, so I will do the best I can.

Again, thanks for the reply.

 

[Slowlearner]

The url for the manual is support.gateway.com/s/Manuals/Desktops/310/9524975.pdf - you must have included the period. You can find the manual doing a generic google search for "Using your Gateway 510 computer". While you may run the disk utilities off a Norton systemsworks CD, without installing it, I agree with you that most Norton stuff creates problems. You could also try running chkdsk off a CD such as Bart's PE (http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/)or UBCD for Windows (use an older version) (http://www.ubcd4win.com/) - these disks have to be created on a working pc with XP, and customized a bit to make sure you have the utilities and drivers (specially your network card) you need, that effort will be well rewarded in situations like these. In addition an online scan at kaspersky.com or housecall.trendmicro.com will also remove malware missed by Adaware and Spybot. Checkout the free av/spyware tools thread in the Hot Deals forum.