Chosen Solution

I picked up a Gateway Nv79 laptop around 10 years ago at BestBuy. The screen ended up getting smashed not too long after. I set it aside in hopes of fixing it at some point. During that time it had been roughed up a little more by the children, ie A 2 year old standing on it etc etc. I say this because I’m unsure if it may have something to do with its current status. As time went on, I had eventually purchased a new screen for $50 and put it in, I was proud!-But when I booted it, Windows 7 would not start. And it said Windows had a damaged file. It went from saying that back then, to now saying this..

Well I just so happen to have a Windows 7 reboot disc. Let’s do this! English, U.S keyboard input, Next… Now I have 2 options. System Recovery options prompts “Use recovery tools" etc.. Or “Restore your computer using a system image that you created earlier.” When I attempt to re-image the computer it says “Windows cannot find a system image on this computer” When I select “Use recovery tools..” I literally go right down the line. Start up repair begins checking for any system problems and then shuts down. System restore says I must specify which Windows installation to restore. Tells me to restart, select operating system and then select system restore. Lol. Recovery Manager options says tool failed to run. Windows Memory Diagnostic says an error is preventing windows from checking for memory problems during set up. I’ve tried the command prompt and different DOS commands. I’ve also tried holding Alt right and F10 on start up to restore to factory settings . It does nothing unless I have the windows 7 boot disc in the computer. And even then it doesn’t help. Here’s some pics of what it told me..

I bought a Windows 10 installation disc for $135 and that doesnt work because Windows 7 is still on there supposedly. I’m ready to wipe the whole thing out just so I can install Windows 10 but the only other option I can think of is completely replacing the actual hard drive. Years ago I bought an external hard drive case and pulled all the videos and pics off from it. Sorry if this question is a little long winded but I wanted to give as much detail as possible so if anyone decided to help they can have a pretty good picture of the situation. Thanks. -ColdMainer !!UPDATE!! This morning I opened up the Hard Drive compartment and realized the HD is just floating around inside. I plugged it in and it seems to be even worse. The CD ROM will not read the Windows Boot disc. I really only get this message..

When I hit ENTER it just loops through. If this is going on WITH the hard drive plugged in I would assume the Hard Drive is jacked up. Right?

@coldmainer this can be a HDD failure, memory failure or corrupt bootloader. I suggest that you change your BIOS to make the CD the booting device. Get a copy of a Live Linux CD something like puppy linux and burn it to CD to make it bootable. Insert it and see if your computer boots up with that CD. If so try to access your hard drive with that. If you can you know that it is most likely a bootloader problem. If you cannot access your drive or if it hangs etc. you know it is your HDD If a Live CD does not work at all you have most likely a RAM problem. Takes a bit of time but it’s not to bad. Software like puppy linux is really easy to get used to and will help with the troubleshooting. I am sure there are other programs out but that is what I have been using for years. Update (03/10/2020) @coldmainer of course. You can also get a version that installs to a USB drive. So you can use that by making the USB 1st boot device. Update (03/10/2020) @coldmainer the 0xc00000e9 error accompanied by “an unexpected I/O error has occurred” is pretty indicative of windows not being able to communicate with your HDD. I’d be starting to look at a new drive :>)

To be honest I believe it has to due with the age of the version of Windows your using altogether. Have you tried installing windows 10 from a fresh boot img? Update (03/09/2020) Or maybe your default boot img was somehow changed . If your computer is set to first attempt to boot to another device, this may cause issues with successfully booting to Windows. To reset your computer’s BIOS to factory defaults, perform the following steps: Restart the computer.

during restart, tap the F2 key repeatedly until you see Entering Setup in the top-right corner of the screen.

Depending on the BIOS, you may need to press a key that is listed at the bottom of the screen to load default settings. For example, F9 on the Inspiron N5110.Press ESC to exit the BIOS, and be sure to select Save and Exit to save your changes.

Hello! @ColdMainer Your problem can be for these both, one of your HDD and the other one is windows disk. You should change your disk then check if you still have seen this message then it is your HDD problem.

Windows not starting like that is usually an HDD problem. Yours was disconnected. Now that you have it connected, it may be that it is failing on reading the HDD and not falling over to the CD. Note that you did not need to purchase a new Windows CD. You can download a Windows ISO and make a USB or a CD. You only need the CD for the code if you do not have a valid license. Therefore, do not enter the code from the CD during the install. Once installed, Widows will auto activate when connected to the internet and you can use that CD code for a computer without a license or resell it since the code will be unused. You need to set the BIOS 1st boot drive to CD, then boot and do a clean install. It will come to a screen showing your HDD. If it does not you have an HDD that Windows can’t see. It may be recoverable. but not in that computer, and that is a whole nother question. If it sees the HDD, delete all partitions that it shows and create one. Then let Windows install.