I already posted, but I have a real urgency here. 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!
So what I did, because it really will only boot to a hard drive internally installed no matter what the BIOS is told to do, is installed Vista on my desktop machine to the new hard drive we ordered for the machine, which is a Celeron/intel chipset and should as far as I know be quite similar hardware wise. So now what it does is say that it is not 64bit compatible and can't boot!
Gateway claims that the thing is a core2 duo, but it is only 32bit? Is there a such thing? Could it just be disabled in BIOS?
In any case, I have to use a machine with a SATA port to install windows to this thing, but it has to only be a 32 bit version, which I am sure is what it came with, but all I have is a 64bit DVD. What to do now?
A quick search on the web shows that:
The Gateway MX8738 was designed/configured with Vista 32-bit OS.
and
The Core 2 Duo Mobile Processor T2080, is a 32-bit processor.
Well it doesn't matter. Even with an install of 32bit Vista (found a copy), it just blue screens. I am gonna call time of death as 1am October 10th 2009. This is another Gateway for the s*** pile where most of them belonged directly after manufacture. I am quite convinced the motherboard is somehow bad.
Well it doesn't matter. Even with an install of 32bit Vista (found a copy), it just blue screens. I am gonna call time of death as 1am October 10th 2009. This is another Gateway for the s*** pile where most of them belonged directly after manufacture. I am quite convinced the motherboard is somehow bad.
There are several Linux Distros that'll run from a USB key and don't require a HD at all.I ran Ubuntu Netbook Remix from a USB key for a bit to confirm it would work on my Netbook,before setting up a dualboot with XP .It'd work as an Internet only laptop if nothing else.
There are several Linux Distros that'll run from a USB key and don't require a HD at all.I ran Ubuntu Netbook Remix from a USB key for a bit to confirm it would work on my Netbook,before setting up a dualboot with XP .It'd work as an Internet only laptop if nothing else.
Thanks for the thought, but this thing will not boot from any device but the hard drive and even with a new hard drive it still refuses to boot after having used another machine to put Windows on. It's just dead, put a fork in it!
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Originally Posted by markjs
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