[wannabe1]

Sounds like you'll need a enclosure.

You should be able to pick one up at a local computer store. Staples and Office Depot both carry them here.

Here's a few examples I found at NewEgg. SATA/USB Enclosures

And external hard drive is not the same even though it is a hard drive in an enclosure...they are not meant to be used the way we need to use it.

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ok, cool. I will go tomorrow and get one. Thanks for all your help.

I just went to Office Depot and Staples, couldn't find any enclosures in stores. Only saw External and Internal hard drives. If I buy an internal SATA hard drive would that work? I may just have to order it online.
Jaz

Edited by Jazper, 27 September 2010 - 07:06 PM.

[Jazper]

ok, cool. I will go tomorrow and get one. Thanks for all your help.

I just went to Office Depot and Staples, couldn't find any enclosures in stores. Only saw External and Internal hard drives. If I buy an internal SATA hard drive would that work? I may just have to order it online.
Jaz

Edited by Jazper, 27 September 2010 - 07:06 PM.

[Jazper]

ok, well I got a HDD Enclosure, not sure exactly what to do with it

[wannabe1]

Install the HDD into it, plug it in (to power and to a USB port on the working machine), and see if the drive shows up in My Computer. If it's detected and displayed there, we can get on with running a disk check to straighten things out a little.

[Jazper]

so I gotta take my hard drive out of my gateway and put it into the enclosure, right? I know that was a dumb question, but I can't get it out of the gray casing. I removed the five screws, but it won't pop out, there is like 2 black plastic things on the side that I have to push it and slide out or something, can't figure it out. ahhh [bleep], am I removing the right thing? I am removing the disk thing, I should be removing the smaller disk at the bottom?

Edited by Jazper, 28 September 2010 - 05:46 PM.

[wannabe1]

Correct.

[Jazper]

ok, finally got the hard drive in the enclosure, and just plugged the USB into my working Dell PC. I'm getting new messages, found new hardware in the icon tray. where do I go from here? I checked my computer, there is a Local Disk (G:) - I assume that is the enclosure HDD

Edited by Jazper, 28 September 2010 - 06:11 PM.

[wannabe1]

Perfect!

If you are running XP on the Dell, click Start, then Run. In the "Run" dialog window's input field, type cmd and click Ok. That will open a black Command Session window.

At the prompt in that window, type chkdsk /r g: and press Enter. That should start the disk check on that drive. Let it run uninterrupted until it completes...it may take quite some time to run all 5 stages of the check.

When it finishes the check, let me know any messages you see near the bottom of the command session window.

[Jazper]

The type of the file system is RAW.
CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives.

and I am running Windows XP on the Dell

Edited by Jazper, 28 September 2010 - 06:32 PM.

[wannabe1]

Ouch

Funny that it shows in My Computer if the partition is Raw. Can you open the drive in My Computer?

[Jazper]

Prompt

The disk in drive G is not formatted.
Do you want to format it now?

I have everything on a backup external hard drive, so if reformatting means wiping in clean, which I think it does, that is fine.

[wannabe1]

Do you have the necessary disks to reinstall the operating system?

[Jazper]

I have two Microsoft Windows XP Professional Disks. One is a x64 edition and the other is 32 system I guess. The Gateway is a 64-bit system, so would the x64 edition work? I would rather install Windows XP on it than Vista.

[wannabe1]

As long as the XP isn't currently installed on another working machine and you have the product key for it.....no problem. Let's format a different way, though.

In the Command Session window, type exit and press Enter to end the session.

Click Start, right click on My Computer, and choose Manage.

In the Management Console, expand "Storage" (might already be expanded) and click on "Disk Management".

In the Disk Management window, right click on the G: partition and choose "Format".

In the Format Options dialog that appears, choose to format NTFS and do a full format...not the quick one. This will take a while, but you can use the computer while the drive formats. May be a might slow, though.

We're probably going to have to locate the SATA drivers for the Gateway in order to install Windows XP, but it's worth trying the install to see if it will go on without them.

[Jazper]

ok, got it formatting, only 5% so far. I gotta go to work, I'm going to just leave it running/formatting. Once it's done I assume I just remove it from the enclosure, put it back in the Gateway. Put my Windows XP Disk in and boot from the CD to install the operating system.