Gateway laptop won't do XP Home system restore

dunbar · July 12th, 2005, 11:08 PM

I am posting this as a solution, this is not a request for assistance... I got this from the 'Geek Squad' at a local Best Buy (Concord NH).

This (reportedly) applies to all Gateway 7000 series notebook PCs (this problem actually happened on a Gateway 7322gz), with a Pentium 4 CPU (NOT AMD).

These notebooks can restore 'Windows XP Home' via system prompt (at bootup, you press a key to restore XP - this does not refer to a 'System restore' after XP is loaded, this refers to a full reinstall of XP done via a keypress BEFORE XP loads, at system bootup).

IF the system actually NEEDS to be restored, you MUST first enter the notebooks BIOS and disable Hyperthreading BEFORE the system restore can succeed. The restore will act like it is trying to succeed, but will get partway through updating hardware and ... the notebook locks up.

Evidently, P4's hyperthreading features are not Windows XP installer compatible or vice versa.

HTH

"Heatmiser" · July 12th, 2005, 11:14 PM

If it came from GEEK SQUAD -IT AIN'T GOSPEL-I'd get a second opinion-The guys that work @ the one here in Mishawaka are freakin MORONS.......

dunbar · July 16th, 2005, 02:27 PM

Well, whatever your experience, I know this laptop was NOT able to do the system restore when hyperthreading was enabled, and the technician cited that the solution was from Gateway, not from Geek Squad. YMMV, time will tell.

sr71000 · July 16th, 2005, 05:32 PM

i'd second that..i've installed xp on a computer with hyperthreading no problem...if anything...gateways bios has a special setup so you can reinstall xp from a seperate partition on the hd......if anything at all...the way they set it up is the problem.....not with xp.

rdavison · July 19th, 2005, 10:16 PM

I experienced the exact "restore XP problem" with my Gateway Notebook (Intel). A special thanks to "dunbar" for his/her help. I disabled Hyperthreading BEFORE the system restore but the restore continued to locked up (as it did for the last 3 hours). Keeping the uncompatible BIOS theory in mind, I disabled every item in the "Advanced" section of the BIOS, disabled my wireless adapter (FN-F2) and the restore finally worked successfully! Again, thank you very much for your help...
I took it for granted the techies who shipped the laptop from Gateway actually tested the restore function before it got into a customer's hands. Over all, I am pleased with this machine for the price.
Rob

Pq · April 13th, 2009, 12:33 AM

Tried to restore a Gateway 3400 and it would lock up as above. I disabled hyper thread .. run restore still would lock up. . Slowed clock speed to Economy or slow(left hyper thread disabled) and then ran (f11) restore again and it was able to complete driver installs and not lock up. Dead computer is now alive ( it is EASTER). and works. I reset clock speed and enabled hyper thread. Still works.