Member Avatar for mushcroom

hi everyone!

my gateway laptop got the blue screen of death a couple of times. i pulled the battery and plug and recharged it. the most recent time i did that was last night. today i open it and it wouldn't start it, it was waiting by the blank screen that comes right before i see the desktop.

i restarted it and was greeted with: run windows repair. i chose that. it said that it might take several minutes and it might restart several times in the process. it took several minutes to "find problems" and then it began to "repair them." a while later i noticed that the laptop had restarted - but now it is stuck on that green bar that you see right when you turn it on. i left it in the hopes that it would continue.

for the past 4 hours all i see on my screen is the green bar and the words microsoft corporation (it is the screen that flashes for about 2 seconds when any computer is turned on, after which the comp starts). i pulled the battery and opened it up in safe mode. safe mode took me automatically to the system repair and i let that run but when i looked back some hours later i saw that it had restarted itself and was on the green-bar-screen again. no matter how i open it, safe mode, regular, system repair, whatever, it stops by that screen.

i called customer service and some indian gave me crap about how my warranty is expired (it is not even a yr old now).

can someone give me advice on what to do please? thanks a lot.

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Short summary and practical next steps for (and anyone else landing here): the immediate priority is to save your files before attempting more repairs. Repeated automatic “repair” loops often mean either corrupted boot data or failing disk sectors. was right to flag backing up first — with lots of unbacked data, take a conservative approach.

Safe, practical backup options (in order):

  • If comfortable, remove the laptop hard drive and connect it to another PC with a USB–SATA adapter or an external enclosure. Copy Documents, Desktop, Pictures, Favorites, and any program data folders.
  • If you can use a second working PC, create a bootable rescue USB (a live Linux or Windows PE environment), boot the Gateway from USB and copy files to an external drive. This avoids opening the case.
  • If the drive clicks, isn’t detected, or you’re unsure, stop and use a professional recovery service — continued power cycles make physical failure worse.

If data is safe, common repair steps from a recovery command prompt (run them in order):

chkdsk C: /f /r
bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /rebuildbcd
sfc /scannow /offbootdir=C:\ /offwindir=C:\Windows

Run chkdsk first (it fixes file system errors and attempts sector recovery). Then use the bootrec commands to rebuild boot records. Use the sfc command last to repair system files offline.

Hardware checks and cautions: confirm the BIOS/UEFI sees the hard drive, remove all USB devices, try reseating RAM (test one stick at a time), and run Memtest86 if you suspect bad RAM. If the HDD is failing (clicking, not detected, or SMART errors), prioritize cloning or professional recovery over repeated repair attempts.

If the laptop is still under warranty, gather serial/purchase info and escalate with Gateway support. If you need step-by-step help making a rescue USB or removing the drive, detail your comfort level and available tools and someone here can walk through it.

Member Avatar for Kilcros

Well, the good news is that your computer isn't completely dead. Which version of Windows are you running?

Whatever Windows is doing to repair itself, it isn't working. The first thing I would recommend you do is boot into another operating system and back up whatever data you need to before attempting to fix things hap-hazardly. If you're able to download and burn a CD on another computer a live CD such as Knoppix will do the trick.

If you're not able to get ahold of another OS to boot into, don't have any data that really needs to be backed up or have never used Linux before then you can skip straight ahead to fixing your operating system. Do you have the CD for your copy of Windows? Booting and running a repair from that CD would be a first thing to try. Failing that you may need to completely remove your version of windows and re-install.

Edit: Also, be nice to the underpaid Indian gentlemen on the other end of the line. I can almost guarantee that he gets abuse all day every day when all he does is type your name into a computer and reads back what it tells him.

Member Avatar for mushcroom

Well, the good news is that your computer isn't completely dead. Which version of Windows are you running?

Whatever Windows is doing to repair itself, it isn't working. The first thing I would recommend you do is boot into another operating system and back up whatever data you need to before attempting to fix things hap-hazardly. If you're able to download and burn a CD on another computer a live CD such as Knoppix will do the trick.

If you're not able to get ahold of another OS to boot into, don't have any data that really needs to be backed up or have never used Linux before then you can skip straight ahead to fixing your operating system. Do you have the CD for your copy of Windows? Booting and running a repair from that CD would be a first thing to try. Failing that you may need to completely remove your version of windows and re-install.

Edit: Also, be nice to the underpaid Indian gentlemen on the other end of the line. I can almost guarantee that he gets abuse all day every day when all he does is type your name into a computer and reads back what it tells him.

Thanks. I have Vista. How do I boot from another OS?
LOL about the Indian, he was quite nice and very polite so I just thanked him and went straight to Google :)

Member Avatar for Kilcros

There are a couple of OSes out there that you can use for recovery - the biggest one I know of is Knoppix. Am I right in presuming you do have data that you want to backup on your PC? Have you used a Linux OS before?

Have you tried running a recovery from your Vista CD? That should be your first step. As far as I can remember there are several recovery options on the Vista CD for you to try. Failing any success with that, I'd recommend you move on to trying to backup your data and doing a fresh, clean install on a newly blanked hard drive. That also has the added bonus of removing all the junk you accumulate over the years with any version of Windows.

Here's a link to the Knoppix website: http://www.knoppix.org/ You would need to simply download the CD image, burn it to a CD and put the CD in the drive when you boot up your computer.

Like I said, though, if you haven't used Linux before there may be a bit of a learning curve you have to endure simply to backup your data. You'll also need some form of storage such as a USB pen drive to hold anything you want to backup.

Member Avatar for mushcroom

well, thanks everyone for your help
im on vacation now so when i get back home this week i will try to use my vista cd

kilcros - i have tons of data that isn't backed up, and no i have never used Linux before.

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