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Gateway Laptop W323 not booting up when Windows XP installed and hard disk replaced
Posted on 2007-11-24
I recently received a friend's Gateway W323 laptop. It seemed like a simple case of a bad hard drive because the disk wasn't being recognized at all when the computer would power on. I took it off and plugged it into my testing machine and it was completely dead. After I replaced the hard drive, I installed Windows XP Pro again from my CD and everything went well with the install. Upon booting the first time, a fatal error BSOD screen flashed and then restarted. It's now stuck in this loop with XP. So I tried my Knoppix Linux Live CD...it booted up and worked just fine for about an hour while I looked at some things. Since that was working, I pretty much ruled out the RAM, but wanted to be sure, so I ran my MemTest bootable. This ran for several hours and did not encounter any errors. Now I am left wondering what is wrong that is not allowing me to boot into Windows. Any ideas/suggestions/tips? I would like to get this fixed in the next couple weeks so they have it back for Christmas. Thanks!!
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Ok first thing try run a checkdisk then see if you get the error again on boot. If so try scribble it down and post it here so we can have a look.
I've come across similar things a simple flash of the bios fixed it. However something easy to try is anther IDE/SATA cable, failing that try another IDE/SATA channel on the board, also unplug all external/internal devices (apart from the keyboard mouse of course) then plug them in one at once and boot to see if the issue continues.
I've come across similar things a simple flash of the bios fixed it. However something easy to try is anther IDE/SATA cable, failing that try another IDE/SATA channel on the board, also unplug all external/internal devices (apart from the keyboard mouse of course) then plug them in one at once and boot to see if the issue continues.
Try safe mode. The fact that Knoppix works indicates that hardware and BIOS (a BIOS very rarely goes bad on its own...) are OK, so I suspect a driver mismatch or some other software clash that happens in windows "unsafe" mode. If safe mode works OK, you could verify all screen settings and disable all autostarting items and see if that makes a difference.
/RID
/RID
Okay, here's a good one for everyone! It is actually booting into "Safe Mode" and "Safe Mode with Networking" at this time. It boots up and runs just fine. The BIOS is recognizing the hard drive correctly. To answer nobus's question, this hard drive is 40 Gb whereas the other was an 80 Gb. It is still being recognized correctly, though. I am pretty inclined to think that it is a "driver mismatch" or something. Where should I start in terms of finding the culprit. By the way, I cannot, unfortunately read the BSOD because the computer dies VERY quickly. I thought about trying to take a picture of it, but that wasn't working because of the glare on the screen. This is definitely a good start because it gives me a little more light at the end of the tunnel! Thanks.
Msconfig - set for diagnostic start. Disable all autostarting items (autostart and registry entries), reboot to normal mode, see what happens...
/RID
/RID
Thanks for that. The error is:
INVALID_WORK_QUEUE_ITEM
Technical Information:
*** STOP: 0x00000096 (0x809F3C20,0x80548ABC,0x8
What's that telling us?
INVALID_WORK_QUEUE_ITEM
Technical Information:
*** STOP: 0x00000096 (0x809F3C20,0x80548ABC,0x8
What's that telling us?
Active today
here they say the error is hardware related : http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms819378.aspx
Do you have any suggestion as to why this would happen out of the blue? For example, the hard drive was obviously bad, and when replaced it is not working at all. I might just try downgrading it to Windows 2000 and say forget it. It's being used primarily Internet access. That is, if that will even work and you don't have a BETTER solution or suggestion presently. Thanks!
Was the unit XP from start and did you use a Gateway CD for reinstalling? Might have been a customized version?
/RID
/RID
Active today
maybe there is another partition left on the drive; did you delete all partitions during install ?
you can also clean it with the disk utility : http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287
you can also clean it with the disk utility : http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287
I used a generic Win XPP disk, not a dateway disk (the owner lost the gateway disk). I will check on the other partition, but I thought that I wiped them out with the Windows install utility. Perhaps that was not enough.
Hey! Sorry for "abandoning" the question. I ended up working out my own resolution to the problem. I slipstreamed SP2 into the disk I was using and everything was fine when I did a repair install over the XP install that I had previously done. The reason that I didn't use a SP2 intially is that I was using a specialized Gateway disk. Thanks for your suggestions.
lanehart,
please follow the instructions in the following Link to close the Q:
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Thanks,
rindi,
EE Cleanup Volunteer
please follow the instructions in the following Link to close the Q:
http://www.experts-exchange.com/help.jsp#hi331
Thanks,
rindi,
EE Cleanup Volunteer
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