Gateway Restore Set won't boot.

Working on a Gateway laptop model NV55c57n. Hard drive is toast. Purchased a new drive. Purchased a new restore set from Acer/Gateway. Contains System, Language and 3 Recovery disks. Instructions are to boot from the system disk and feed the rest as prompted. Only problem is that the machine won't boot from the system disk, or the recovery disk. I didn't try the language disk. Message says "No boot disk found. Check cable. (or words to that effect.)

It will boot from a Windows 7 repair disk, a retail Windows 7 install disk, a Windows PE disk, an ultimate boot disk 4 windows, a knoppix system disk and a Microsoft memory test boot disk. It isn't the CD/DVD drive.

Anybody got any suggestions?

TIA, CJon

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JackE

I assume you made the dvd drive first in the bios boot order?

Jack E/NJ

cjon

Yes, that's how I got it to boot all those other CD/DVD's
What gripes me is that I entered the machine's serial # and bought the restore set the wizard said was correct. Not only am I out $20, but I'm no closer to fixing my customer's laptop.

CJon

JackE

cjon>>>the machine won't boot from the system disk, or the recovery disk.>>>

Jack E/NJ>>>I assume you made the dvd drive first in the bios boot order?>>>

cjon>>>Yes, that's how I got it to boot all those other CD/DVD's>>>

Sorry, I'm confused. What other CD/DVDs booted? Are you referring to the new HDD as the system disk? And saying the new HDD won't boot after installing Win7? I don't mean to question the obvious, but did you switch back the new HDD to first in the boot order even though you may have an empty DVD tray?

Jack E/NJ

cjon

>Windows 7 repair disk, a retail Windows 7 install disk, a Windows PE disk, an ultimate boot disk 4 windows, a knoppix system disk and a Microsoft memory test boot disk.<

These are all CD's or DVD's

No, I'm not referring to the new HDD as the system disk. Disk #1 in the restore set is labeled System Disk. Then, there is a "Language" disk, and then 3 "Recovery" Disks. I ordered them from the Gateway/Acer website, based on the serial number of the laptop. They came with instructions to put the "System" disk in the CD drive and reboot the machine, hitting F12 to select the CD as the 1st boot device. Actually, the optical drive is selected as the 1st boot device in the BIOS, but I tried it both ways, using F12 and simply letting the BIOS try to boot from anything it can find. Same result.

Here is a directory listing for the "System" disk

Volume in drive E is CD_ROM
Volume Serial Number is 7D6E-B90C

Directory of E:\

09/21/2010 05:35 AM <DIR> ACERBOOT
04/30/2008 12:24 AM 0 ACERBOOT_FOLDER.TAG
09/21/2010 05:35 AM 45,306 AUTORUN.INI
04/30/2008 12:18 AM <DIR> BOOT
01/18/2008 10:45 AM 333,203 BOOTMGR
12/05/2007 10:08 PM 237,568 CHECKFILES.EXE
04/30/2008 12:18 AM <DIR> EFI
04/30/2008 12:18 AM <DIR> GAIA
09/21/2010 05:35 AM <DIR> PATCH
09/21/2010 05:35 AM 9 PBFIX.DAT
09/21/2010 05:32 AM <DIR> SOURCES
09/21/2010 05:35 AM 1,483 SYSTEMCD.DAT
6 File(s) 617,569 bytes
6 Dir(s) 0 bytes free

cjon

What puzzles me is that optical drives in 3 other computers read that "System" CD just fine (see directory in previous post), and the optical drive in the laptop, a Pioneer DVD-RW DVRTD11RS (according to Device Manager) will read other disks I'vve tried in it. So why won't it read the one disk I have to have to do my restore?

Rught now, I'm running an unactivated copy of Win 7 I installed from a flash drive, but my customer wants the laptop put back to "out of the box", and I can't get there from here. I've got a new hard drive and a new, official restore set, and I can't use one to set up the other. I'm getting just a tad frustrated.

JackE

OK, now I seem to understand. It's been a long time since I've been confronted this problem since it was usually a desktop that couldn't read an optical disk for me --- whereas my other machines had no problems reading it. Sometimes it was just a matter of opening the drive door and blowing or vacuuming out all the dust bunnies that had somehow gotten inside and screwed up the beams. Other times it was a matter of cleaning the disk surface with rubbing alcohol to remove finger prints or other smudges. Still other times the drive simply refused to read the disk no matter what I did --- I chalked it up to something amiss with the disk or drive itself. So, about all I can recommend at this point is the contact Acer and request a replacement set of disks as the machine simply can't read the ones that you received.

Jack E/NJ

cjon

Jack - Thanks for your advice. I have found Acer's website to be a bit ..."convoluted".. do you have a suggestion (or better yet a link) on how to contact the right person/group?

Thanks,

CJon

JackE

Try this. I got to it via the Acer Store button on the top of this page. If it doesn't yield results for you, please post another message here and we'll see if we can get an Acer staffer to point to a better direction. https://store.acer.com/store?Action=DisplayContactFormPage&Env=BASE&Locale=en_US&SiteID=aceramer

Thanks

Jack E/NJ

cjon

I sent them a message last night with no response so far, but maybe they only work M-F. I'll wait and see. I also found an 800 number on the bottom of my invoice, and I know it is only M-F, so I'll call them MOnday. I was thinking about either pulling the HD out of the laptop, sticking it into my bench machine, doing the restore there and putting it back in the laptop, or else trying to boot from a USB connected optical drive. After that, and with no solution from Gateway/Acer, I guess I'm delivering the laptop with a Dell Branded version of Win 7 and no ancellary programs.

And a reminder to anyone who asks to never buy Gateway/Acer/eMachines equipment.

JackE

I think another option may be to make an iso file using something like http://www.imgburn.com/ . Then put it on a bootable stick using something like the universal usb installer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbkD2qfZkBQ. The other option for making a stick bootable is the MS usb cd download tool for MS-designated legit isos --- I'm not sure if your recovery disks are designated MS legit or not. 8^)

Jack E/NJ

Cory-Acer

What prompted this attempt to restore?

It sounds like the HDD could be bad. You're getting the error that the there is no boot disk, which is one of the first things our recovery is going to write to. You can clearly boot off of the other CD/DVDs but they arent' accessing the HDD. Has this been accounted for?