PDA

View Full Version : need computer help


88Nightmare
04-04-2011, 04:28 PM
Went to do a system restore on my girlfriends gateway laptop using the supplied system restore discs that came with the laptop. After it formatted the hard drive and reinstalled all system files, it ejected the disc and said it needed to restart. After restarting, it just booted to a dos looking screen that said BOOTMGR compressed. Press ctrl-alt-del to restart.

After restarting, it just kept giving the same message. If I try the boot menu after bios processes, it will eventually just end up at the BOOTMGR message. Only way I can get different results is when I restart with the restore disc in the drive and redo the restore again. But then after the restore is done and it restarts without the disc, same error message pops up. WTF?
xxsn0blindxx
04-04-2011, 08:56 PM
It sounds like you have a hardware problem. It could be a bad hard drive, bad optical, scratched/damaged DVD or motherboard.

What prompted you to run the recovery disk in the first place?

I would start with this:
Find out the manufacturer of the hard drive and download the diagnostics utility from their website.
Go to http://www.memtest.org/download/4.20/memtest86+-4.20.iso.zip and download Memtest to verify that the RAM is functioning properly.
Xephona
04-04-2011, 10:08 PM
You failed to specify what OS... so.. hopefully this will still work for you.. meh.
http://www.cybertechhelp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=151686
88Nightmare
04-04-2011, 10:33 PM
sorry. Computer had Vista and it was running slow as shit. We wanted to do a complete restore so we could give the laptop to her little sister as she is starting college. Factory installed operating system was XP. Restore discs should have wiped everything out and reinstalled xp.

I find it hard to be a hardware problem. The computer was working ok before the restore, everything just ran like shit.
Xephona
04-05-2011, 12:34 AM
Evil Evil Vista... anyway, that link should be able to do it I think....
wikked
04-05-2011, 02:46 AM
If nothing else, go to your favorite torrent site, and download the version of XP that is stated on the cd-key sticker on the bottom of the laptop.
If it says "XP Professional" - search for XP PRO OEM
If it says "XP Home" - search for XP HOME OEM

(Even if say you searched for XP Home, and the search results say "XP HOME OEM DELL" it doesn't matter, it will still work on any brand of laptop.
Just make sure you get the English version :P)

Then you can just burn the iso (burn as disc image, not bootable data disc/etc), and install from that, using the cd-key on the laptop sticker.
Done it plenty of times.
xxsn0blindxx
04-05-2011, 07:40 AM
If the system does not boot after it is re-imaged, then by default there has to have been a hardware problem that caused it. That problem could be the recovery disk itself or the optical drive which you may not have known were bad prior to re-imaging. To eliminate the recovery disk and the software image you can just load a clean copy of windows. I would recommend this anyways as most factory images are loaded full of garbage that make the computer run slower than it should.
xxsn0blindxx
04-05-2011, 07:43 AM
Then you can just burn the iso (burn as disc image, not bootable data disc/etc), and install from that, using the cd-key on the laptop sticker.
Done it plenty of times.

If he has Vista he can't use the number on his Vista COA with XP. He would need an XP key.
05caddyext
04-05-2011, 08:28 AM
He said it had XP as the original operating system.

Also, you say that its hard to believe that its a hardware issue. I spent about a week trying to repair my desktop which was just working super slow. It turned out to be the hard-drive. I changed that out and everything installed just fine. Id be willing to bet its your hard-drive causing the headache.
88Nightmare
04-05-2011, 08:28 AM
If he has Vista he can't use the number on his Vista COA with XP. He would need an XP key.

Laptop came with xp on it. She later upgraded to Vista. We DO NOT WANT vista on it. We want it back to original xp.
88Nightmare
04-05-2011, 08:29 AM
He said it had XP as the original operating system.

Also, you say that its hard to believe that its a hardware issue. I spent about a week trying to repair my desktop which was just working super slow. It turned out to be the hard-drive. I changed that out and everything installed just fine. Id be willing to bet its your hard-drive causing the headache.

its possible. It's a 4 year old laptop. Wish I would know for sure it was an HD failure instead of all this dicking around. If it is HD failure, is it worth it to put a new hard drive in a 4 year old laptop?
wikked
04-05-2011, 11:39 AM
its possible. It's a 4 year old laptop. Wish I would know for sure it was an HD failure instead of all this dicking around. If it is HD failure, is it worth it to put a new hard drive in a 4 year old laptop?

Absolutely. It takes about 2 minutes to change out a laptop hard-drive.
Undo 1 screw, pull caddy out, (remove screws holding drive into caddy if necessary... put new drive in, screw back in, done)
You can find 80GB for about $25 shipped on eBay all day long.
xxsn0blindxx
04-05-2011, 01:52 PM
Go to the hard drive manufacturers web site and download their diagnostics CD. This will tell you if the drive is good or not.
Undertaker
04-06-2011, 12:56 PM
If you are getting "BOOTMGR is missing" it could be one of these issues:

- Bad Sectors on the Hard Drive
- Bad Hard Drive
- Loose or unseated IDE or SATA cable
- Virus
- Partition is not marked as active

You can try to activate the partition. You would need to get into a recovery console command prompt.

Diskpart
List Partition
Select Partition (your partition number)
Active
Exit

You could also try repairing the bootloader. I don't remember the commands for XP since it has been awhile. If you still can't boot, that should give you an idea if the hard drive is bad. You could also defrag the hard drive or download and run DBAN (low level format) to completely wipe the whole hard drive as well.