Gateway laptop won't boot Windows 7

[silmarilxl5]

Hi all,

One of my neighbors dropped off their Gateway laptop with me, saying it had been hijacked. They heard I'm computer literate... So I turn it on and the Gateway splash screen comes and goes, the progress bar reaches about 80% and the screen goes dark for about 30 seconds, then goes to black. Then it restarts and just keeps cycling like this.

Where do I start? Any help and all help will be greatly appreciated and thanks for reading.

Mike
Los Angeles

 

[Abmario]

To restore Gateways is to hold down the ALT Key and repeatedly clicking F10, it should take you to a Boot sequence screen... Select HDD and then hold down ALT and repeatedly hit F10 again.. it should prompt the Restore feature for gateway.

If no chance do it is to boot into windows and run the Recovery program.

 

[silmarilxl5]

abmario, thanks!

Alt>F10 got me to the Loading Windows Files screen, then to "Starting Windows screen, then to a "Please wait a moment" screen where it hangs. (Alt+Ctrl+Del does not work. I have to use the power button). I did not see a "Boot Sequence" screen at all.

Thanks again

Mike

 

[Abmario]

Are you sure it hangs, is it steady LED or blinking... it must be the restoring factory setting it may take a while..
But if no chance, then have a installation disk of same version and then repair..

 

[silmarilxl5]

Are you sure it hangs, is it steady LED or blinking... it must be the restoring factory setting it may take a while..
But if no chance, then have a installation disk of same version and then repair..

Abmario,
You were right on every count. It took about 15 minutes to restore then raised a screen with a choice of repairing the OS, or reinstalling it. When I chose to repair, the machine indicated the OS could not be repaired. The reinstallation took about 30 minutes and did not require the installation disk. Everything works like new and I'm sure the owners will be thrilled.

Thank you VERY much for timely, informed and polite help. It was a pleasure and if I could give you points or something, I would very much be glad to. Thank you again and best wishes,

Mike
Los Angeles

 

[Abmario]

My pleasure, Cheers!

 

[Johnny Vanorsdale]

abmario, thanks!

Alt>F10 got me to the Loading Windows Files screen, then to "Starting Windows screen, then to a "Please wait a moment" screen where it hangs. (Alt+Ctrl+Del does not work. I have to use the power button). I did not see a "Boot Sequence" screen at all.

Thanks again

Mike

 

[Josiah Todd]

I don't know why it works but when mine fails to start I take the battery out and restart on electrical power only. It has worked twice. It is the same problem that you're talking about. the gateway screen shows up it thinks for a few seconds and then the screen goes blank and black except for the mouse pointer. will try alt. f10 though in the future. shoot mine is windows 8 though. its an NV570P09u

 

[wnfarrell4]

To Abmario: Just wanted to thank you. I've been trying to fix my computer for over a week with no luck. It would not let me sign in and kept restarting every few seconds. Your advice is the only thing that's making some progress. I have a lot of important files on my computer and I don't want to lose them. Right now I'm at the restore progress at 18%. So I won't lose my files what do I need to do once it reaches 100%? Thanks ahead of time for your help.

~Wendy~

 

[rgd1101]

If you have important file. first thing would be to not do anything to it other then extracting the data.
take it to a shop or take the hdd out yourselves and use an external encloses and connect it to a working computer.