Hi,
I;m new to the forum,looks like great help and info here.Irecently obtained a gateway laptop and as the owner had not formatted it,I went ahead and formatted it using the partition method.I then used the gateway operating system disc to reinstall win xp pro.However I'm not able to open windows in normal mode ,the windows insignia comes up then the screen goes blue blank,I'm able to start in safe mode however and it appears that neverything is there.I tried using the f8 prompt on booting up as I saw posted in another thread with the same result unfortunately,any help would be appreciated,I'd love to make this little guy work.
thanks Steve

What do you mean partition method?

It sounds like you should do a complete clean install. Restore disks are always messy. You want to format the disk (not quick format) prior to installing the OS.

Let me know how it goes.

thanks much, i'll give it a try

Gateway computers often have a tricky little quirk which prevents installing any OS except one sold by Gateway.