Hi, so my dad recently bought an old gateway desktop computer because our other computer crashed. This computer was working top notch until a couple weeks ago, and now when its turned on it says "no bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key". It use to say boot error, but I was taking some guys advice on the internet and got into bios mode and changed some settings. I attempted to create a bootable usb drive, but i dont know where to find a .ios file. Help is greatly appreciated. System info: gateway desktop 3.2 GHz 2.5 GB RAM Microsoft windows xp intel inside pentilum 4
1. go into bios and if you have a key to restore defaults do so and see if it will boot. 2. this is sometimes due to the hard drive crashing. if this is an older pc and you have had it awhile this may be the case. 3. if the bios got set to sata drives instead of ide, change to ide. 4. below are instructions for a hiren's boot cd (or usb) there are lots of tools and memtest86+ to test memory, it is a sizable download, do this from a working pc, 5. download the drive testing utility from the drive manufacturers website and check the drive. 6. after burning hiren's run the recovery console chkdsk c: /r 7. if hiren's recognizes the drive backup all your data . Courtesy of Jose Ibarra: Anywho, to make a Hiren's boot CD, do this: I am going to recommend you use Hiren's boot CD (it will also go on a USB drive). This is good for you because it has many more tools on it that on the XP Recovery Console CD, does not care about your Administrator passwords and you will not have to futz around in your BIOS if any afflicted system has SATA drives - Hiren's can deal with that. You will have a whole bunch of cool tools that you don't have in the XP Recovery Console... a registry editor, password resetter, and a desktop that looks like Windows XP so you will feel comfortable maneuvering. You can also easily copy your personal data (documents, images, music.) to an external drive. From a working system, first download Hiren's Boot CD from here (it is a substantial download but worth it): http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/ (look near the bottom of the page, do not click on any ads). http://www.hirensbootcd.org/burning/ Instructions Unzip the Hiren's to some folder where you can find it. There is a Hiren's.BootCD..iso in there that you are going to need next. Hiren's has instructions to make a bootable USB that you can use, but it requires you to first burn the .iso to a CD and some other steps, so I suggest another way... Download RUFUS 1.20 from here (read some stuff on the page so you can know more about it): http://rufus.akeo.ie/ I will caution you to be careful that you don't accidentally format any of your hard drives - be sure your USB stick is in and know what the drive letter is! This part always makes me a little nervous, so be careful. Launch RUFUS and all the defaults should be okay, for the Device, choose your USB drive letter, Quick format, FAT32, label it if you want to and in the Format options box, click the little icon that looks like a CD and a window will open. Navigate that dialogue to point to the folder that contains the Hiren's.BootCD.15.iso that you unzipped earlier and the box should change to say ISO image (RUFUS understands the Hiren's ISO file). Double check you have the right Device selected in the top (NOT you HDD) Click Start, acknowledge the warning and let it finish (it will take a little while) as it copies the files. The Hiren's ISO is also good size. When RUFUS is done, it will say 'DONE' in the bottom. Put the USB stick in the afflicted machine and reset/reboot and press whatever key you need to press to get to a boot menu where you can select the USB as the first boot device (that is F11 for me). If you don't see a boot menu choice, you will have to adjust your BIOS to boot from the USB first instead of the HDD. When the Hiren's menu comes up, choose the Mini XP Mode and it will start loading (slowly from a USB drive) and eventually you should see a Windowsy looking desktop. You should recognize that part and feel comfortable, but it is not your desktop - it is the Hiren's desktop! Remember: You did not boot on your hard disk - you booted into the Hiren's desktop http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd-on-usb-disk Hiren’s for flash drive -------------------- post back with results by the way most desktops cannot be booted from a usb only floppy, cd or harddrive. tell me the make, gateway, model and model number so I can look for an online manual.
