Fixing my friends computer

Hey, I thought it'd be nice to give a whack at fixing my friends computer, as its a nice one:

Its a gateway desktop
Motherboard with onboard sound/gfx
P D processer @2.80ghz
2g of RAM
250gig HDD
2 DVD/CD drives
SD/whatever else drives
plenty of USB
21' wide screen LCD monitor
windows XP
ect...

So anyways, it's got a nasty virus that makes it get stuck when it boots up windows.... (the screen with the windows flag and the little loading bar) It also gets stuck when trying to boot safemode, DOS only, network ect..

Well the problem is, the recovery partition is also screwed up, but he can't find a recovery CD... so my questions are:

-Does gateway sell recovery disks? or are they all strictly on a HDD partition
-Is there any other way to wipe the HDD clean? DOS was a alternative but it won't boot.
-If all else fails and he has to buy a new HDD, do we have to buy a new copy of windows?


thanks!

There are loads of ways, but try this, or even a Linux distro like Ubuntu, which lets you take over the whole hard drive... you can then reinstall Windows if Linux isn't any use to him, but it's an easy way to get rid of everything on the drive.

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/


Whoa! There's no need under any circumstances whatsoever to buy a new HDD! He may have to buy a replacement copy of Windows, but he ought to contact Gateway first and find out what their policy is if the recovery partition has been screwed up. They may send a CD to fix it.

Get a bootable XP CD, boot with it, try repair console first, fixmbr / chkdsk etc.

If everything fails, install a second OS on another or the same partition
or you can format it first if you don't have anything to backup.

I/He could care less about the data that's on it now

They wont send one but they will sell him a new recovery CD/DVD disk at silly prices.

Do what Mortiis says and get hold of a OEM/Retail XP disk and boot into the recovery console.
Try chkdsk first then try fixmbr if chkdsk fails.

If you have access to a PC with a floppy drive and you friend has a floppy drive then this may help http://www.computerhope.com/boot.htm
There is a way to create (or download) a CD rom version you will have to google about abit.



It may not be a virus. It sounds more likely that he hasn't shutdown windows correctly (Start->Turn off computer (gives me a smile that)).
After a few impropper shutdowns Window will not boot up in normal or safe mode.

could be a corrupt system entry, normally Windows/System or Windows/System32.

So... you care quite a bit about the data that's on it? Or did you mean you couldn't care less?

However you do it, some expense is going to be incurred. You need to either get a new recovery CD (personally I wouldn't bother), or buy Windows XP. The OEM version isn't expensive.

Ok, here is the easy solution assuming your friend has XP.

Pop in the XP cd, go into BIOS and set it to boot off the CD ROM.
Now when the prompt comes up, press a key quick, up comes the XP partitioner. Delete the drive and reformat to NTFS. Then when it reboots, don't press a key when it asks. Now you can reinstall XP. When XP is installed, set the BIOS back to boot off what it was before.

yeah GfK, that's what I mean (easily mis-spelled)

this is a 320gig HDD

ok well, I have a >DELL<(not gateway) XP disk, I popped it in... after loading the files into ram it gave me 2 options:

Press r for OS repair
press enter to install windows xp

With either option it gets stuck on:

"Examining 305243 MB Disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on iastor..."

Odd... are you trying to format the drive?

I'd try swapping out the IDE (or SATA) cable, and make sure everything's connect up right. Could even try it on IDE1 instead of IDE0 (or another SATA connector) to rule out any board problems.

If it won't even format after all that then the drive is almost certainly dead. New ones are quite cheap now. My 250GB SATA-II Samsung hard drive was £30.

Sounds like eiher the filesystem is screwed up or the whole HDD is on its way out if you say that the recovery partition is screwed too.
At what point does it crash out when booting in console?
Also run fdisk in no-fix mode first to see what its reporting.

Its a long shot but if your mate still has his code there is a *small* chance it will work with another oem disk. Otherwise you will need to shop another one like GFK said.

Yep, if you know somebody that has an XP CD, reinstall from that. Provided you use your own licence key (which is probably on the PC case somewhere), it should work perfectly.

It might throw a minor eppy if you've changed the hard drive, though, when you try to activate Windows. If that happens you might need to call Microsoft (on a freephone number) and answer some questions on the automated service. I've had to do this twice in the past and everything's been fine afterwards.

You can also take that hdd, change the jumper settings to secondary slave (the label on the hdd shows how) and connect it to another computer which has a harddisk with a properly working os. Then you can examine it in that os and even try some hdd saver programs. As far as I remember XP doesn't show the bad sectors as free or occupied space. If you see it as 150gb or something like that instead of 320, say goodbye.

But your problem might be about ide cables and even the xp cd you use.(Had that problem about 2 weeks ago.)

Long story short, try it on another computer.

Yeah, get yourself a proper XP cd and try that.

Yeah, I'm currently using this:

http://www.dban.org/about

To wipe the drive clean - then we'll try the OS installation, the dell CD may not work, so he may have to buy a new OS CD.

So far so good on the DBAN thing. Its 43% done and counting - 3 hours into it... I suppose 320gigs takes a bit.

Question:

After this is done, I want to make sure it works by installing a version of linux.... Is there any out there that behave similar to windows? Also, is it a file that I burn to a CD like the program I used to wipe the drive? If so where do I download it?

Thanks from the linux noob :)

Alright, I downloaded Ubuntu some linux OS, as a .iso file and burned it... we'll see how it works

You should have just went into the recovery console from the XP disc, than used the fixboot command.

Failing that, use the setup/install windows XP, then choose the partition with the current XP installation, and it should let you repair that installation, and it should work fine.

Good news, they found the recovery CD, I'm happy to say the computer is back in 100% operating condition!

Tell them to put it somewhere safe this time ;)

(But not so safe that they can't remember where it is)

Well, he is kinda a windows person, so I didn't want to leave linux on it :\