[SammyQ2]

My college age daughter just presented me with her non-functional Gateway MT6840 laptop, which had Vista installed. She said that it had a virus and "everything was gone". She doesn't have any recovery disks and I don't think it was ever registered with Gateway. I suspect that one of her friends tried to fix it and now I'm getting dumped with the remains.

When booting, the screen stays blank. I can ALT F10 and get to the bios. It will not start in safe mode. It tries - it says "Loading Windows Files" at the top of the screen and lots of files scroll by, but then it just stops. I am unable to get a command line prompt. The screen is blank, with the exception of the cursor arrow.

I downloaded a recovery disk from recovery-cd.com and am able to start it up with Linux (which I know absolutely nothing about). If Vista is still present on the computer, I don't really know how to recognize it, let alone revitalize it.

Any suggestions how I can get this thing up and going?

Thanks.

[Dwight]

Hi SammyQ2. Check this out and see if it helps.

http://support.gateway.com/s/software/medi...age01su44.shtml

Gateway Recovery Instructions.

1. Reboot, and press F11 or the R key to start the recovery process.

2. Select either "Full System Restore (Destructive)" or "Full System Restore (With Backup)"*.

3. Click "Next", and then click "Yes" to confirm the recovery process.

4.Wait for the computer to restore itself. When it is done, click "Reboot" to reboot the computer.

Dwight

[SammyQ2]

Thanks, but it doesn't seem to work.

I have ordered a disk through the Gateway Recovery Media Purchase Program. We'll see if that works.

[Dwight]

Good luck with it and let us know how you come out.

Dwight