Operating System Recovery Not Working

So i have a Gateway gt5028 running windows xp media center edition with service pack 3 i decide i wanted to upgrade my hard drive but before i did i clone it so i can install it to the new hard drive. anyways when i went to do a clean install with the recovery pressing f11 to go into recovery mode and every time i get to the recovery menu to choose the clean install and erase my hard drive it freezes before i can choose anything. so i tried it again except this time i use the recovery cd my gateway came with that did not work either it just froze in the same spot again what can i do please

 

Apparently on some Gateway laptops you have to disable an Intel speedstep option in the BIOS to use the system recovery, see if you have this option in the advanced section of the BIOS. If so it wont do any harm to set to disable and then try. Dont forget to swith it back on when finished

 

thanks for the reply but i have a desktop sorry i forgot to mention that but yeah i don't have the option in my bios so what do i do now?

 

Hi jwv8518, strange problem.

Are the drives SATA or PATA

Little bit unsure about the details, i take it it is the old drive you have in the computer when you are trying to use the recovery option.

Did you clone the old hard drive, and have you tried to put the image on the new hard drive.

Did you have any problems with the computer at all prior to this problem and have you added any other hardware like memory etc.

 

well here an idea how about you tell me where its sappose to go since i obviously don't know where to put it at

 

anyways its a pata drive nad yes i clone the old drive yes i'm trying to use the recovery on the old drive well i haven't installed anything new as for problem the my lan connection was missing but i manage to fix that but install a new bios but before i did that i still couldn't use the recovery

 

Im a bit stumped on this one, was kinda hoping it was the speedtest option. Its not certain but sounds like a hardware issue to me. Im assuming you tried the recovery CDs on the new hard drive, and the fact that you have no problems with the OS running would suggest that the memory, CPU, and motherboard are OK. The fact that you flashed the BIOS and had problem on the old BIOS suggests that this is not the problem also.

If you have more than one stick of memory you could try just one stick in system i suppose incase one is dodgy. Could disconnect all cards unneeded,new drive, and any extra CD Roms, put old drive on master on one IDE controler, CD master on other IDE controler and try recovery CDs.

Straw clutchers i know jwv8518 but better than nothing, if i think of anything else i will post bud.

 

lol you are the best jodav although i tried all those methods still i freezes up on the recovery but i never tried the recovery on the new hard drive just on the old and the old is my master. do u think it could have to do with my screen being plug in my graphics card instead of the one that's on the mother board that the only thing i didn't unplug and i used memtest and all my rams are good also my mother board is good as well. again u are the best and thanks for helping me unlike some people on here

 

Ha Ha, i am one of those people who rule out nothing, like to use process of elimination. So yes you have nothing to loose removing graphics card and trying on board graphics at all, and new hard drive. If you do get it sorted out maybe you could post whenever that may be cos its got me interested.

Like i said if i think of anything in the meantime i will let you know. Maybe someone else with a fresh mind will come up with some more suggestions.

Dont give up and good luck

 

yeah i will keep you posted but maybe later on playing WOW so yeah lol

 

what software are you using to do your clone?

The freezing or hanging when trying to read the drive that can be caused by file corruption. You can try doing a chkdsk c: /f (c = the drive letter of the partitions you want fixed change it for different partitions).

 

hey johny it has nothing to do with the cloning software as i have yet to change anything on the hard drive but if u must know i', using clonezilla and it works great and best of all its free not like that ghost program although that one is more user friendly lol its just the recovery option freezes up when i press f11 to go into it or if i boot it from the recovery cd same thing thing happens but thanks for your effort and reply

 

hey guys so after many hours of trial and error it turns out since i had both my master and slave drives connected it kept freezing everything i tried to do recovery so what i did was disconnect my slave and vuala it didn't freeze and now i can finally do a clean install on my old hard drive and u can use the old one as a back up just in case i get a virus or something on my new one so yeah i would like to thanks you guys for taking the time to try and help me but a special thanks to jodav who has always tried to help me even in the past you rock jodav lol so there another mystery solved by sadly me again lol. i hope this helps anyone who has ever had this problem with a cheap gateway pc

 

Check both hdd's there should be diagrams on them you may find the drive you have set as master requires a jumper pin or such like,or just set em both to cable select=cs,i suspect that's why the lock up it happens on mine,usually due to not having a pin on the master which sets it to single drive mode


I had a quick look at clonezilla,you might find these two more to your liking they are free in no money
http://www.todo-backup.com/download/
http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm

A partition manager in the style of partition magic,however it only does ntfs & fat there is no support for linux as far as i can tell

http://www.freewarefiles.com/EASEUS-Partition-Master-Home-Edition_program_44615.html


If you require help in imaging for whatever reason,there's only 1 place to go,helps free & not limited to ghost either *thumbs up*
http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl

 

hey whats up scorpNZ thanks for the other clone software but u gave me 2 to choose from which do you recommend? also i have the pins in the right place on both hard drives one is set to master the other to slave. as for the (set em both to cable select) you lost me on that can you be more specific on the matter thanks in advance

 

I personally use ghost & acronis i thought the 1st link for imaging might be better since it has an easy on the eye GUI as for xml it's been around a while but i've never used it,the partition manager lower down seems ok & it can clone too,yeah just give either a whirl & see what happens,if you run xp you can easily dual boot once the master is cloned

OK cable select or cs should be on the rear of the hdd's all IDE drives have it,it is part of the master/slave pins on the rear,on the very left you have the IDE ribbon,next to that you should see some pins top & bottom but only 3-6,then you have your power plug,those 3-6 pins are how to set master/slave or cs with the pin jumper

EDIT:If you want i can try out the first imaging software & let ya know if it works ok

 

yeah all u had to say was set the jumpers to cable select instead of making it more confusing the second time lol anyways so how will it be able to tell which is master and which is slave if i set both of them to cable select? also yes i would like you to try the first imageing software also both my hard drives are ntfs so those software would be fine

 

Once pins on both hdd's are placed on cs,the comp will automatically do everything else,so basicly it would be as if you had set the master & slave your self so which ever hdd is on the master ribbon plug will be the master drive

OK give me an hour maybe less,shouldn't take that long but ya never know