[micpizzle]

i wanna format my hard drive and reinstall windows but i get this blue screen error message.

[Advertisements]

What are you doing when you get the message? We definitely need more information than you have provided, to know what is happening.

[Tyger]

What are you doing when you get the message? We definitely need more information than you have provided, to know what is happening.

[Mr Freeze]

is that what happens when you put windows cd in ...you get that error
you could erase your harddrive with boot and nuke

http://dban.sourceforge.net/

copy/burn it to cd
heres a tutorial on boot and nuke
if you decide thats the way you choose to go

http://www.irongeek....to-wipe-a-drive

Edited by Mr Freeze, 04 May 2008 - 04:08 PM.

[micpizzle]

ya. i have the original gateway xp cd in when it happens.

[Gnimsh]

OK folks, here's the deal. The irql error message he's getting is caused by an incompatibility with the videocard or something (found by extensive googling in channel yesterday) and can be fixed with a BIOS upgrade, but being gateway, this upgrade can only be done from inside windows. Naturally, he can't boot into windows at all. So that's a moot point.

Moving on, he cannot install windows because the installer does not see a hard drive. It cannot see a hard drive because the windows installer has no SATA driver in it. If these companies would actually take the time to think about this, they would create their own custom CDs to save users such a hassle, but no, instead they use disc images to just drop right onto the hard drive and move onto the next one. What's this do? It forces people to stay with one install forever, figure out how to fix it (next to impossible for Joe User) or switch to a more advanced OS which sees the hard drive with no problem (linux).

What he needs is the following. I've attached a zip file of the self extracting executable of the intel hard drive controller matrix, which has the drivers he needs inside of it. I have yet to successfully do this in linux, and although I did it for this machine when I installed XP I have since forgotten the program I used to extract the files from the exe. So I can't do that part.

Once these files are extracted, he must use nLite to create a custom windows install which incorporates these drivers, create the ISO and burn it to CD, and once that is done it should pick up his hard drive no problem.

Attached Files

•  f6flpy32.zip   292.78KB   211 downloads

[cmpm]

micpizzle,

Do you have a Driver cd?
If you do, boot from it first and format/erase the hard drive.
Follow the instructions from there.

[micpizzle]

nope. only cd i have is the xp cd

[cmpm]

What is the model of your Gateway Computer.

[micpizzle]

gateway ma7 laptop

[cmpm]

I don't see a 'ma7 laptop' at gateway support.

Find the model of your computer here and download the files and drivers you need.

http://support.gatew...rt/default.asp#

[micpizzle]

oh its like the mx6214 or something like that i think

[Gnimsh]

cmpm, he gave me the serial number and that's how I found the drivers needed. I also couldn't find MA7, only M...

Btw, the name of the program to extract the drives is called winimage.

[cmpm]

Gateway can supply everything you need.
Just put in the number in that box or find the right model.
And you can get everything that is supposed to be in that model.

Since you have the XP cd then the rest should be on Gateway's site to make a boot disk. They are dependable imo.

If the restore system is not built into the hard drive then they will have a driver cd to boot from before you use the xp cd. - That's my experience with Gateway, and I have a few.

[micpizzle]

still didnt work. txtsetup.sfi is missing or corrupt. gnimsh is a great help btw.

[Gnimsh]

I googled the text setup issue and found that you can either set up the hard drive on another system with the same OS (not really possible on a laptop I think, at least not easily without another laptop) and another option was to replace the txtsetup.sif file with another so I sent him another copy from my XP CD and that still didn't work, so my next suggestion was to use the nuker program mentioned above and then attempt a reinstall using the custom XP CD that has the SATA driver on it.

Btw, does anyone else feel like companies are making it harder and harder to change the OS your computer comes installed with?