Another reason I HATE GATEWAYS!

[Vette]

I had a customer bring in their Gateway laptop (I didn't get the model number)because when they tried to update the computer to IE 6.0 something went wrong with the install and now it boots to the desktop and freezes. Upon control alt delete once while it's frozen explorer and setup.exe are both not responding. The customer has called Gateway and their reply was IE6 is not compatable with that laptop which is running Win98SE??!!?? This laptop also has the hot swappable floppy drive and CD-Rom drives but you can't use both at the same time because there is only one place to plug them in. They brought in the restore disk, but it's on a non bootable CD and if you try and boot it to a floppy disk, it won't find any drives because the CD is not installed. I was going to format the laptop and restore it, but I can't figure out how to get the restore disc started. Any ideas??

[kato2274]

Here's the easiest way I can think of if the CD drive is not bootable. (If it is, you only need the windows98 CD)
get a window98 CD and a windows 98 emergency boot floppy. Boot from the floppy drive.

Go to C:\ and rename his autoexec.bat and config.sys to something like autoexec.old config.old

Copy the contents of A:\ to C:\

boot computer. The computer will boot from C as if it is booting from rescue floppy and install cdrom drivers etc.

now change to cd rom letter.

change directory to win98 on cd

run format

change back to cd root directory

run setup

this will get you back to a clean windows 98 install then you can go from there in regards to the rescue disk.

[Damned Angel]

also check to see if there is a options\cabs directory in the windows directory. most OEM's put the windows cabs there so that when windows wants a file from the cabs, the customer dosn't have to constantly get out their win cd.

you should be able to run the setup from the cabs directory if there is one.

[Vette]

I forgot to add there is a C:\windows\options\cabs folder but no setup.exe
I know on a Compaq computer sometimes you have to hit ctrl-Q to arm the drive and on a Toshiba you have to hold down the C key to get it to boot to a cd-rom, but don't know if that applies to a Gateway

[Damned Angel]

there isn't usually a setup.exe. just type setup at the command prompt while in c:\windows\options\cabs and setup should run. weird, but it works

[Vette]

Haven't tried that, Will give it a shot. Most of the time I go into the options\cabs folder and click on setup.exe. Thanks Damned Angel. Will let you you know later today.

[Vette]

That didn't work either Damned Angel, thanks though....But.......Ya Gotta love 'em.......The customer came back in today and said you might need this and handed me a Gateway boot disk for that laptop. It boots up from the floppy, then stores the boot information while you shutdown and swap the floppy drive and cd-rom, then starts the installation process after you reboot.

[Sowulo]

DOH! Don't you just love those customer afterthoughts....

[Damned Angel]

gotta love those users, and I was just about to suggest you copy the setup.exe from another machine onto a floppy and use that.