Gateway Laptop - New Hard Drive Issue

[Octavious]

Hi All,

So i've been talking back and forth with a former coworker about his laptop issues over the past few months and i finally have my hands on it to work with it and I have some issues. Basically, at first (few months ago) his OS was crashing and losing random files, so he purchased a new hard drive for it. Here's where I come in. He was having issues installing the OS back onto the blank hard drive (obviously he needed the device drivers for it). So I offer to help him out. I pull the drivers off Gateways website for his model, throw them on a blank USB drive and the Installation Process won't find the drivers when I scan the flash drive.

Some googling pretty much brought me in a giant circle of things I already tried, so I'm turning to you guys in hopes there's something I haven't tried (which there most likely is).

I've tried using Gateway's Restore Disc & Drivers, Using my Linux drivers and Ubuntu, as well as using an image of the old hard drive (albeit it's probably got some missing files) to format this and I can't. I've gone into the BIOS and the options to format primary storage are grayed out (cannot access) which I cannot seem to get through either. Oh, and I've tried using the Hard Drive Manufacturer's drivers I would love to have any suggestions on what to do, until I think a something I'm going to have to do some more reading on the issue.

Halp Pls <3

[Gippo]

So you've got the pc reloaded with just missing drivers?

if the driver packages dont have a "setup" exe, then you can install them manually by pointing to the folder on your pc that you installed the drivers to.

control panel > system > device manager > right click on driver > install >
dont ever pick "install automatically" , pick "allow me to choose the driver to install" and point to the folder. i usually just put them on the desktop until im done with them.

[Octavious]

So you've got the pc reloaded with just missing drivers?

if the driver packages dont have a "setup" exe, then you can install them manually by pointing to the folder on your pc that you installed the drivers to. dont ever pick "install automatically" , pick "allow me to choose the driver to install" and point to the folder.

No; The Restore Disc won't proceed any further on the install and neither will any Linux Distro i've tried since it cannot recognize the Hard Drive. I'm having trouble getting the laptop to recognize the new hard drive, heh, conquering the rest once a OS is on it isn't an issue.

[Gippo]

oh sorry.

does it "see" the hard drive during the windows install? if no, then you probably need a raid driver for it.

but...if the restore disk doesnt even recognize the hd, it wouldnt be a raid driver issue.

does bios see the drive?

[Octavious]

oh sorry.

does it "see" the hard drive during the windows install? if no, then you probably need a raid driver for it.

but...if the restore disk doesnt even recognize the hd, it wouldnt be a raid driver issue.

does bios see the drive?

When I go into the BIOS it has 'Primary Storage' registered as 'None' but I can't access the options to format etc, it only allows the system time to be changed and some boot options (boot from CD or Main Storage) and Main Storage is non-existent in its eyes. I'm kind of curious if it's something to do with the Gateway laptop and not my attempts at getting the laptop to find the drive.

[Gippo]

ok, bios doesnt see the drive.

system time is your cmos battery, which is independant of your hd.

try a different hd. if you do and you get the same "bios doesnt see drive" , then you have hardware failure on the sata connector on your mobo. = not good.

even a never formatted brand new drive should show up

[Octavious]

ok, bios doesnt see the drive.

system time is your cmos battery, which is independant of your hd.

try a different hd. if you do and you get the same "bios doesnt see drive" , then you have hardware failure on the sata connector on your mobo. = not good.

even a never formatted brand new drive should show up

Yea, thats what I'm thinking about. I've got few hard drives from my older laptop that I'm going to try as well. I'm really hoping it's not a mobo issue but i'm sensing it is.