Saturday 8 December 2007

Reformatting a Gateway laptop ---- AGGGGHHHH!

The Buddhah would be swearing right now....

I kid you not. He would be up from under that Boddi tree and swearing like a sailor. And Jesus? You think the scene in the Temple was bad? NOTHING, I tell you, NOTHING compared to the temper tantrum he would have trying to reformat and reinstall the drivers on a 6 month old "certified" Gateway refurb.

I put the certified in quotes because I cannot imagine how this Gateway refurbished exercise in illogic and missing restore files could be called "certified".

Yes Windows reinstallled, after three attempts and a final desperate removal of the partition and reinstallation of the partition. But the "restore" disk Gateway so kindly provided lacked a few things...like audio drivers, video drivers, BUS drivers, network drivers, wireless card drivers....not anything essential, right????

So I went to the Gateway site and typed in my model number and started downloading drivers for my computer. Except they don't RUN on my computer! And one wasn't even the file it said I was downloading!!!!

So I have spent the past several days and nights searching the net for the RIGHT drivers. And I am still at it. I have internet access now and sound, and am working on video. Hopefully someday my DVD player will work again...it was one of the things I wanted on this new machine.

As I go through this, I have to wonder...why isn't everything that's on the computer on the disk? Why isn't there a process where the same software installed on a given machine is duplicated onto a disk? Excactly. Completely. Too simple, perhaps? Too logical?

After hours and hours of searches and downloads and reinstalls, my computer is STILL not right. It says it lacks a video decoder and will not play DVDs.

So much for quality and reliability...my first Gateway just became my last.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'd have to say that your experience is, sadly, not unique to Gateway. I've had several clients who have suffered through similar experiences on computers by other manufacturers.

It's one of the many reasons I use Macs.

Unknown said...

I know, Macs are better...but also WAY more expensive! Guess you get what you pay for!

Anonymous said...

GATEWAY LAPTOPS ARE THE WORST LAPTOP IN THE MARKET. THEY DON'T PERFORM AT ALL. THE CUSTOMER SERVICE AND TECHNICAL SUPPORT SERVICE IS VERY BAD. NO ONE SHOULD EVER BUY ANY GATEWAY COMPUTERS