Re: Reinstall with broken DVD drive

On Oct 1, 4:34 am, PM <P...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
It's a Gateway laptop. I canot find any model number on the case at at all.
There is a barcode with what appears to be a serial number but it isn't
recognised by any the US Gateway site. If that is the s/n it means it was
bought between 10/04 and 9/08 - not much help. It is running a P4 3 GHz
processor with 480 Mb RAM.

I have gone through all the bios settings and boot device options are
CD/DVD, FDD, IDE/HDD and Broadcom MBA. On the advanced settings page USB
legacy support is enabled and Network boot is enabled.
--
Thanks

PM



"Paul" wrote:
PM wrote:
Thanks for all these responses - all helpful in their own way. The bios
settings don't give me any option to boot from USB ports. The HD is already
partitioned into 3. Would it therefore be easiest for me to make an image of
the CD onto one of the partitions and boot from there. I am sure it can't be
as easy as that

Have you checked for a popup boot menu ?

USB support was "visible" a few years back, in that a separate
BIOS page was provided, with info on currently connected
USB devices, emulation mode used and so on.

USB has gone "underground" since then. There is support for
USB in the BIOS, but there isn't much to see. They no longer
provide a separate page for USB. But the same feature set
is still hiding in there.

Perhaps we can be of more help, if we knew the make and model number
of computer. If the computer is old enough, then you could be right,
that there is no USB boot support. That does narrow your options.

    Paul

Just because it says Gateway on the outside, doesn't mean it is
Gateway on the inside.

Provide much information:

Click Start, Run and in the box enter:

msinfo32

Click OK, and when the System Summary info appears, click Edit, Select
All, Copy and then paste

There will be some personal information (like System Name and User
Name), and whatever appears to
be private information to you, just delete from the pasted
information.


Only when the model is determined can you then start to find a
replacement drive.

Don't you think you might need a working CD drive someday?

If your system doesn't boot someday, how are you going to start
troubleshooting it?

Are you comfortable slip streaming a new installation, purchasing a
USB device (that "whatever" device), making it bootable, configuring
your system to boot on a USB device (if it even will and what if it
doesn't), using the "untested", sometimes, might, maybe try methods
mentioned, etc.?

Isn't it less trouble just to replace the CD drive with something
compatible (if it even needs replacing)?

What methods did you use to determine the drive is bad and not just
misconfigured?

What does "not working" mean?

You can mess around with other ideas for a long, long time that might
work maybe, or you can fix what you have and it will work for sure.

I also wish someone would clarify this stated method of determining
authenticity:

"Research whether it was a volume license key, or a flat out hacked
version of WinXP or whatever."

If I have an XP license key, how can I determine it is is a volume,
flat out hacked or whatever license key?
.

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