On Tuesday 23 March 2004 07:47 am, Marc wrote: > > I had the same problem with a friend of mine who wanted to try Linux. I > > also had a spare harddrive that had linux already on it. We took his > > out and put mine in and it would start to boot and then just stall. > > Couldn't get into the BIOS at all. We put his old disk in and it was > > recongized just fine but had to reinstall windows. This is a 3 year old > > gateway. He tried to install linux on the original harddrive and all > > went well until reboot. Again we couldn't get into the bios. Now that > > I know what the problem is I can reformat his drive with partition majic > > and he can use the restore disk. Although it doesn't surprise me in the > > least, gateway and gates, both suck. > > Moureen I seem to be getting close to the bottom of this. From what I > have found it is NOT a problem with linux. I have spent a lot more time > troubleshooting than I really should have. If I was to put any reasonable > value on my time I could have purchased a couple of new motherboards by > now. I guess I just don't like to be beaten by a POS hardware problem or a > low life company that sells junk like this. > This is what I have found so far. I installed a old Seagate 8 geg HDD > model ST38410A in the Gateway, ML 10.0 installed , rebooted and ran just > fine. I then downloaded Powermax from Maxtor and did a low level format on > the Maxtor HDD from Gateway to insure that any and all hidden partitions > and all data that Gateway had on it was 100% removed. I then tried it again > and got the same old result. After installing ML the BIOS could no longer > see the HDD. I did another low level format and again installed the drive > in the gateway the BIOS could again detect the drive but this time I ran > the diagnostic utility on the powermax disk and got the result of a ERROR > BIOS Extension support failed. > > After this I have to conclude that Gates way is selling some models of > computers where the BIOS on the MOBO does not fully or correctly support > the hard drives supplied with the computers. > > At this moment the owner of the gateway machine is on the phone with > gateway demanding a replacement MOBO or a replacement drive of the same > size that is 100% supported by his MOBO or a full refund. If he meets to > much resistance from gate way he is going to inform them that this matter > will be taken to small claims court and that the papers will be filed in > Mountain Home Arkansas the town that we live near. After doing some > research into Arkansas law if we understand it correctly a representative > from gateway will have to appear in court in Mountain Home AR or a > automatic judgment will be made against Gateway. The closest Gateway office > is in Little Rock, over a 100 mile drive so someone from gateway will have > to spend at least a full day at this or they will have to hire a local > lawyer. Yeah this guy is a bit Pod but he has been hung up on by Gateway > tech support no less than 3 times in the last few days. > > I by no means claim to understand the law but in my mind their is a > valid legal point here. Gateway is selling systems built with hardware that > is NOT supposed to be installed together. > This would be like Ford selling a car with rims that were 15" X 8" and > putting on tires that were recommended by the manufacturer to go on a rim > no smaller than 15 " X 10" , I would assume that when the tires failed to > preform correctly ford would be forced to rectify the parts mismatch. > > Also if the system that you are talking about Moureen is about 3 years > old Gateway could have a BIG problem here, possibly a class action law > suit. If they want to sell third rate hardware to customers that do not > know any better they deserve it. > > Any legal prows out there with any opinions? Anyway to put Grocklaw on it? > > Marc
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