Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Gateway computer support

This is topic Gateway computer support in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 03-27-2003, 12:46 PM:

Since I upgraded from WebTV, I've been on a Gateway 2000 computer that is running Windows 95. It has run well until recently. When the previous owner of this computer deleted files, apparently they deleted some of the Windows operating system. I need to find a recovery disk for this system.

Here's the fun part of all of this:

We called Gateway and told them everything that they needed to know. They informed us that since we are not the registered owners of this computer, they dont have to help us AT ALL, even though this computer has a lifetime warranty...purchased by the original owner! So, if you are looking at a used Gateway, BEWARE!

I hope that someone in this forum can help me. The computer is crashing regularly, suddenly, with Kernel 32 error codes.

I have all of the discs that came with the Gateway, including a System CD (v1.7) that will not run.

The computer sounds like it is grinding flour in there.

I KNOW there are some incredibly brilliant patient people here. Won't you please help a computer novice get his 95 system running properly? Until we loaded a new HP printer software, the Gateway never crashed, even though it was indicating that there were parts of the Windows system missing... but wouldn't reveal what it was!

PS: We uninstalled the printer hardware. Same problems.

I hope this gets on the forum without a crash!

Bruce

Posted by Sam Hunter (Member # 1119) on 03-27-2003, 12:54 PM:

Just wipe the thing and install windows 98. XP or something. Get a copy of win98 and use that to step up to XP or whatever.
Or just reinstall Win95, you should be able to find a copy somewhere but it would be best to just do a format and install a new operating system.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 03-27-2003, 12:55 PM:

Is the "sounds like it's grinding flour" noise coming from one or more bad fans? Maybe the system or CPU is over-heating. That could cause things to be flakey. However, I agree with Sam, your best bet is nuke-and-pave, preferably with a newer version of Windows.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 03-27-2003, 01:10 PM:

Maybe Norton Utilities could help. It can undelete deleted files, although not in all cases. It can also scan the Registry and maybe find which entries point to files which are no longer there. Then you could get those files from another computer.

Posted by Sam Hunter (Member # 1119) on 03-27-2003, 01:14 PM:

As far as the noise goes you probably need to check the fans and see if you dont have a cable rubbing against one. Or you may just have a bad fan.
Or better yet check out Tigerdirect.com and buy you a new one for $200.00.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 03-27-2003, 01:22 PM:

The flour grinding is probably the hard disk running amok.
Another strategy:
When the computer starts, wait until it beeps and then quickly hit F8 for the start menu.
Select dos prompt and then tye this at the prompt
SCANREG /RESTORE
Scanreg scans the registry (that`s why it is called scanreg), the central system data base in Windows, for wrong entries. The registry is saved regularly, and when there are faulty registry entries, you can restore an earlier backup copy of the registry. That helps in many cases where an installation routine has messed up the registry.

Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 03-27-2003, 01:44 PM:

OK, thanks for all the fast replies. I may have a solution cooking. We are going to reformat this computer. So, I will not be online for a few days.
I should have been more specific. The grinding is the hard drive running. When we defraged the computer last month, it quieted right down. Since all these kernel 32 errors started, it grinds.

Thanks, and I will reply when I get back... (I feel like I am going on a trip!)

Bruce McGee

Posted by Sam Hunter (Member # 1119) on 03-27-2003, 01:50 PM:

Out of curiosity, what kind of hardware makes up this machine? How big is the hard drive and all that?
Is it possible you have a boot virus? You may just pick up a bigger hard drive.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 03-27-2003, 02:09 PM:

Before you format, try my tip.

Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 03-27-2003, 03:35 PM:

Well. nothing is working. Michael, I tried your suggestion.

Windows will not allow itself to be stopped. Something like HAL 9000.

This System Disk that came with the machine... it does nothing. Could be defective, or is this just another way that Gateway has of saying :GOTCHA!: ???

I'll never own another Gateway.

Inside, this is a standard computer with a 133 processor, and hard-drive. I added a hard-drive strictly for images, etc. I have lots of images.... [Smile]

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 03-27-2003, 03:46 PM:

You can always stop the computer during boot but you have to be quick enough, right after the beep. Or exit Windows into dos then run scanreg.

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 03-27-2003, 07:34 PM:

If I remember correctly Gateway used to really like poledit, so it might not be possible to just 'hit F8 or F5 or CTRL' to get a boot menu.

In anycase it's probably best to start over since it's new to you and you've got nothing to preserve. Make sure that you have / download any any drivers you'll need to get back on the 'net. Specifically your modem or ethernet drivers. As long as you can get on the internet you'll be able to download drivers for any hardware you missed.

Posted by Joe Smith (Member # 190) on 03-27-2003, 10:17 PM:

My guess is a defective Western Digital 1 GB or 1.2GB disk in there as a boot disk, or maybe a smaller 800MB drive. A P5-133MHz system is a 1995 vintage and Gateway used mostly Western Digital drives then. There was a higher than average failure rate for the older drives. (I'm not knocking Western Digital, it just seems that the 1995 era had a high failure rate and Gateway seems to have a lot of the failed drives). In order to boot the Win 95 CD that comes with that vintage system, it should also have come with a DOS 6.22 boot floppy in an orange envelope used to boot the system and then load the appropriate CD-rom driver so you can access the Win95 CD to re-install the OS.

However, I do agree, it's better to install Win 98 if you can get a copy....

BTW, my old P5-133 still works but I only turn it on once a year or so....

Good luck,
Joe

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 03-27-2003, 10:52 PM:

Sam made a good suggestion. However, drive space could be an issue in those old hogs.

I ran across this issue Compoop machines using Windows 95. I formatted the drive, converted to FAT32, installed Windows 98SE, and Microsoft Office Pro.

Oh, it'll run fine....except for one small minor insignificant detail....It'll chew up about damned near 500megs on a hard drive. Lot of those old Compoops I am dealing with only had 750 meg drives....so you figure. There may not be enough drive space to install the program, "A Wet Fart" by Anus Gasflapper.

I suggest you stick with the latest version of WIN 95 that was available when WIN 95 was discontinued. They were not quite as much as a hard drive hog as WIN 98SE or above was. Of course, you have other issues to look at, such as RAM, CPU speed, Front Bus speed, etc. [Big Grin]

I would highly recommend you listen to Daryl and some of the other computer GURU's on FT. They make a living at this shit, and I am just a puke trying to keep my shit running. [Smile]

...and disable that "Chipaway Boot Sector Virus" program that was incorporated in the BIOS. That is as lame as a port-a-potty that has not been serviced in 7.5 years.

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 03-27-2003, 11:08 PM:

Windows 98SE is well worth the extra space over Windows 95. Of course I'd take NT4 Workstation any day over either, but I won't go there. In any case, the difference in size between the 9x OSes is marginal compared to the enormous size of Microsoft Office -- which isn't bloated, it just has a lot of features and programs that most people will never use.

Paul, if you cut back on those weenies you wouldn't be puking! [Smile]

BTW, BIOS Boot Sector Virii Detectors are the leading cause of failed OS installations. Even if you want to use the feature, make sure to temporarily disable them before you install the OS.

Oh yeah, most actually work just fine since the only thing they do is detect when the hardware tries to write to the boot sector -- there's really not much to update about them.

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 03-28-2003, 01:39 AM:

Daryl said:

quote:
Paul, if you cut back on those weenies you wouldn't be puking!

Daryl, I have only one answer:

Pbpthbpthbthp! [Big Grin]

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 03-28-2003, 01:40 AM:

It'd probably be easier to talk too. [Big Grin]

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 03-28-2003, 01:43 AM:

Daryl, correct me if I am wrong, but MacroSmash 98SE wants to occupy about 226 megs (including MSIE which is crucial for us) of HD space after installation. That still is a significant munch out of the HD as compared to Windblows 95, especially for some who are HD space conscious and have a ton of programs to load that will run just fine under WIN95. And Jeeze...when you download about 50 megs of patches and fixes for the 98 platform and MSIE with Office Pro and Gasflapper programs installed, there is hardly nothing left for HD space. When I download all the critical updates, patches, etc., there is only about 150 megs left if I am lucky. We are too cheap to install bigger drives, because the bios won't recognize huge drives without additional software, and as slow as those Compoops are, why bother? When our sales people use those machines for XL and Winword, kiss the remaining drive space goodby in a 3 month period. I am constantly deleting shit off those drives, including stuff that should not be on them in the first place....They never learn, it seems. Oh, well...Job security I guess. [Big Grin]

I am not hammering Compoop.....we have a Gateway that is suffering the same fate.

True, Windows 95 eats elephant droppings....there is no question about that one.... [Big Grin]

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 03-28-2003, 02:26 AM:

No you are right Paul. I forgot that Windows 95 typically won't use more that 76MB of hard drive space. Leaving you with a little more than a 100MB extra space than if you had used Windows 98 in its trimmed down ~180MB size.

Either way, I'd still avoid using Windows 95 on a desktop that I was going to regularly use, to me the improved stability would be worth the 100-150MB sacrifice. Especially on an 800MB to 1GB hard drive that the Gateway machine probably has.

Office on the other hand, weighing in at a little over 400MB after applying the necessary service packs, is a software suite that I would be picky about what exactly gets installed.

Then again, I've only got 17GB free out of my main workstations 400GBs of hard drive space, so I guess I'm really a pack rat anyway. [Smile]

edit: Just saw that you added that you've got people who like to mess with the systems. You should check out Deep Freeze. I've used it on quite a few corporate and school board networks and have been very happy with it. Gone are the days where users tie up my entire day.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 03-28-2003, 03:32 AM:

quote:
BTW, BIOS Boot Sector Virii Detectors are the leading cause of failed OS installations. Even if you want to use the feature, make sure to temporarily disable them before you install the OS.

Explaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 03-28-2003, 04:21 AM:

The BIOS Boot Sector virii detectors block the hardware from being able to write to the boot sector until the user confirms that the write should be allowed. Some don't even ask the user for confirmation and just block the write altogether (this type is rare).

This often causes the installation software to give up trying to write the boot sector because the software will 'time-out' trying to write the boot sector, usually before the notification even pops up. In most cases, the installation software will give up so quickly that you will never even be notified about its attempt to write to the boot sector.

Then end result of the installation software not writing to the boot sector is a missing bootloader or bootstrap. Without one the operating system cannot load since the hardware won't know where to look for the OS (the bootloader/bootstrap contains info on where and how to load the OS).

Most OSes' installation software will just abort the installation if it finds it can't write the bootstrap to the boot sector but there are some funky, non-mainstream (mainly older) OSes that will just continue along like nothing happened, leaving the user wondering why the system won't boot after the installation is done.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 03-28-2003, 08:15 AM:

I understand that applies only to the primary installation of the OS? Or to later additions as well?

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 03-28-2003, 12:25 PM:

Regular service packs and other updates won't be affected. However, operating system upgrades where there is an entire version change, say Windows 98 to Windows 2000, would be affected.

Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 03-28-2003, 06:38 PM:

Hi guys.

I'm on-line on a friend's computer. Mine is down.

I have a Win 98 disc. I need to kill windows 95 before installing 98. We tried yesterday, but 95 kept insisting NO!

Today, my comp. will start-up. but goes to safe-mode, then goes black.

I'll be around now and then until I get my system fixed.

Bruce

Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 03-30-2003, 05:53 PM:

I'm back!!!

Same computer, but reloaded with Windows 98. Now, I have to relearn everything I had figured out on the old system!

Thanks to all of you that replied to my requests. I tried everything you suggested.

I missed you all.

Seems like I was gone a long time!

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-31-2003, 12:19 AM:

I'm jumping in on this one late just to ask how Win98 is running on that circa 1995 Gateway. I have older versions of Windows laying around for "museum piece" machines.

Sure, Win98 might afford more features and such for an old computer, but by and large you usually take a massive performance hit by updating. I would not even attempt to install WinME or WinXP on such an old machine (and that's even if the OS would even install successfully at all).

Actually, I would be very tempted to go the opposite end and just install Windows 3.1 and MS-DOS on it and run some really old apps like the DOS version of Word Perfect 5.1. Certainly it would not look pretty, but you would get respectable speed and reliability on that old machine. Any new software (or "bloatware" to use a more accurate term) would probably bring the box to its knees.

Some people ask me, "what can I do to keep my computer running like new?" I tell them, "don't upgrade anything."

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 03-31-2003, 12:41 AM:

Bobby, I totally agree with you in the third paragraph of your above post.

We have MSDOS 6.22 based computers running (Even one of them is an old 286) that never seem to crash. They are reliable enough to use as out book keeping computers. They also use specialized third party software.

Our programming computers are likewise MSDOS-based with specialized third party software. The DOS based computers of our system are trouble-free. The most serious maintenance that has to be performed from time to time on these old boat anchors is "Defrag" and that's about it! [Smile]

We did have to use windows 3.1 and 3.11 because of SAW and Fast Edit. They need a minimum of 3.1...

And yes, our on-air computers use Lantastic Version 8 on a coax network. (it does have its limitations, though... [Smile]

)

The only computers we have based on Windows 95 or above are in our sales and administrative departments. All of that stuff is on DSL. Those keep me busier than a cat on a tin roof.

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 03-31-2003, 01:02 AM:

Oh how I miss having to regularly deal with Lantasic networks -- Lantastic 6 really was fantastic. [Roll Eyes]

You haven't had fun, though, until you've used Novell Netware Lite... why doesn't this work, oh yeah, stupid %^$%&#& lite version! [Mad]

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 03-31-2003, 01:04 AM:

oooOOOOoooo! I guess I pushed Daryl's button... [Big Grin]

Actually, the only problems I have had with Lantastic 8 are occasional network collisions, and just plain slow if the network is busy transferring shit from one machine to another during the programming mode.

Booting is slow when the entire network has to be booted. It takes a few minutes for each machine to find each other. If it doesn't find it, it'll just sit there and beep at you until it is over-ridden or it does find it.

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 03-31-2003, 01:34 AM:

Nah, Lantastic is a fun little network OS that few people actually understand.

You do know, Paul, that you're supposed to run it on top of Dr. DOS! [Big Grin]

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 03-31-2003, 02:00 AM:

Yeah. Without Dr. Dos, forget it. Actually, it is Lantastic 6 and not 8 like I said. My bad....

I remember my first computer. It was an XT. I got it from a junk shop for 10 bucks. The drive was formatted when I got it. When I plugged it in, an insult came "Bad or Missing Command Interpreter."

So I waltzed down to the local computer store to buy a "Command Interpreter". Jeeze, what some funny looks I got. [Big Grin]

But a 16 year old kid that was working there saw I was in trouble. He is the one who got me into these things about 1 year before Windows 95 hit the market.

He even built me a 486 and gave it to me for a birthday present. I still have that computer, and it still runs. It has Windows 3.11 on it. [Smile]

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 03-31-2003, 02:27 AM:

Geez... you guys really ARE old pfartz!

Guess I shouldn't talk though... I have 2 voice messaging service bureau systems. One is running on Dos 6.22 & Lantastic, is not Y2K compliant, but refuses to konk out and remains my most flexible system. The other runs on NT, has all the features that were thought up post-internet, but is nowhere near as reliable as the other one.

Bill should have left well enough alone! [beer]

Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 03-31-2003, 12:32 PM:

Ok. I've been playing with the system for 24 hours now, and boy, am I tired after phucking around with it most of the night.

First thing: From the time I start the computer, it takes 18 seconds to get to the start page on 98. Took almost 45 seconds with 95...

Images and graphics download really fast now. Found out that the driver that was on the modem was not right for this computer. Remember, this computer came to me after 5 years of business use.

When I got this com, I installed a 2nd hard drive that is larger than the one that Gateway supplied. When Windows loaded, it took over the drive that I installed, and moved all my images, etc. onto the smaller drive.

Believe it or not, I lost nothing, other than Netscape 4.7. I'm very impressed with the abilities of my friend here, and his skills in computer work. If I was the one doing the work, you wouldn't be reading all this, yet.

Even this site is running faster. Before, when I posted here, the post page was much larger than my image space. Now, it is right.

Public thanks to Royce Vance for getting this oldie-but-goodie back on-line.

Bruce