Umm........I need help with a Windows 2000 computer! (dont hate me!)

[the_wallcrawler]

i can't believe this is my first post on this forum.....

first off, i am a mac user (tibook400, 10.2) and i read these forums often. i was a switcher before switching was cool.

anyway. my brother has a gateway computer running windows 2000 and that thing is completly shot. it will boot up but nothing will run. my intention was to use the install cds to clear the harddrive and reinstall everything. but i cant run the cd! on a mac i could boot off the cd, can i do that on the windows machine? its been awhile since i was in windows world and im lost, especially since i cant run any programs. anyhelp would be great. thanks.

just another reason to use macs........

eric.

 

[G4scott]

My first advice would be to accelerate the computer (see my sig.)

If I remember correctly, the BIOS may have to be set to see the CD drive as a bootable device. I also think that DOS has to have the proper extensions to read CD's.

If you have a win 98 computer nearby, make an emergency startup disk. You need 98, since it's the simplest one with the CD drivers that you need. You can then proceede to FDISK the HD to erase everything.

With the 98 boot disk, you should be able to use CD's and from there, you should be able to re-install Win2k.

 

[janey]

get...a...mac...to...replace...that...peecee!!!!

 

[losfp]

If it's a full win2k installation CD, it should be bootable (if it's gateway's own flavour of software restore CD, you may be out of luck).

Get into the BIOS setup upon bootup (ie: when it says press del to enter setup, you press del)... hunt around in the menus and change the boot order to say CD first... and go from there.

 

[Rower_CPU]

I concur with losfp. Go into the BIOS and change the boot up options so that booting from CD is enabled and so that the PC will look for a bootable CD before it tries to boot from the hard drive (boot sequence).

 

[bdguyton1]

Floppy..

Is there by any chance a floppy or CD in the computer? And, is the comptuer COMPLETELY off? b/c my bro.'s laptop wouldn't go past a DOS screen, and it ended up that his computer wasn't turned all the way off. Try those, and if they don't work, use a floppy boot-up disk.

 

[the_wallcrawler]

Originally posted by übergeek
get...a...mac...to...replace...that...peecee!!!!

that would be my solution as well......but my dad can't afford to buy him one.

thanks for all the other advice. i'll be going home this week (i go to school at michigan state) and i'll try to work it out.

oh yea. the cd that i am working off of is the gateway installation cd. will that work?

 

[finchna]

In addition to changing the boot order in bios and booting from a floppy, I've seen Winboxes with raid cards or scsi cards that needed to use the software on the card to reformat the hard drive before the machine would boot from any other drive. If changing boot order or booting from floppy doesn't work, see if there's a scsi card/adapter option when the machine is booting up--probably about the same time you see the bios f-key notification, choose that, use the scsi tools to reformat the drive, then try rebooting from CD or floppy.

Nathan

 

[mjb]

Originally posted by the_wallcrawler


oh yea. the cd that i am working off of is the gateway installation cd. will that work?

well, being a wolverine, i probably shouldn't, but i'll be nice and help a spartan...

typically, the installation cd's that manufacturers ship with their systems are used for just the case you are in. they are operating system installations, plus many (maybe all?) of the drivers (graphics, sound, etc.) that you will require for your particular pc hardware.

but that's *typically*. ymmv...but it sounds like the cd you have should work fine.

like others have said...use the bios to select the proper boot order--the key is making sure the bios will check for a bootable cdrom before going to the hard drive. the gateway cd should do the rest, in the best case scenario.

if you feel comfortable with the process and so inclined, an fdisk and format would probably also be a good idea...but for best results you'll probably need to boot from a win98 (not winme!!!) floppy.

 

[pdham]

Originally posted by mjb
well, being a wolverine, i probably shouldn't, but i'll be nice and help a spartan...

Well being a Badger I probably should quote a message from a Wolverine helping a Spartan but I suppose I can add some advice as long as noone tells.

I had a gateway before my Mac and the gateway cd that came with my computer did not have windows install on it. It could be used to boot into safe mode however. So i guess you will just have to see what you got after you get your cd to boot (change your bios is the way to go for that). If you can only boot into safe mode I would suggest trying to do that, because if it works then you can rule out regestry and hardware problems, which just leaves one really messed up software issue. It may not fix it but its a start. Good Luck... and oh yea Go BADGERS!!

Paul

 

[the_wallcrawler]

again. thanks to all.

even those pesky wolverines and badgers.

eric.