Install vista problems - laptop dropped :(

My gf has a Gateway m-150 and it took a nasty fall today. It made the laptop restart and was stuck on the green wave image on start up. She restarted and got the same thing.
It's saying that windows wouldn't load.
I asked her to unplug it and take the battery out, put it all back and try again. Same result. So I get on the thing and after waiting awhile it finally goes to some "Startup Repair" program.

It does a self check that takes forever, and says it cannot fix the problem. At this point I'm thinking the hard drive was knocked loose, but I'm not sure because it's not saying "hard drive not found" like on xp and previous versions.

I called Gateway, who said the warranty doesn't cover accidents, and that we have to reinstall Vista to see if the hard drive is bad. Great.

So I'm trying to reinstall, I've burned the drivers on my laptop and when I tried to put them on, it said there were no drivers found on the disc. When I just try to install, it sat at copying files for a long time, saying 0%.

Then it said 100% and stuck on "expanding files" , I believe that was the option.

Finally she said (but I didn't notice) the left side of the laptop was shocking her hand.

Sooooo, lol. Where do I go from here?

 

What does your laptop warrenty cover?

Shocking is bad. Very bad. I thought while reading "They'll just be able to get a new hard drive off newegg or something and reinstall everything, cause the hard drive is always the most likely to be damaged from a drop"..but then you mentioned Shocking.

Noot goood. That means that some componets are no longer grounded/wired correctly.

 

It hasn't shocked me yet, I'm hoping she was imagining that. Apparently the warranty only covers parts and labor from "normal wear and tear" not including acts by God, Allah, Zeus, or gravity.

 

wow, looking at the warranty, they don't even cover "normal wear and tear"

THIS LIMITED WARRANTY DOES NOT COVER AND GATEWAY IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR:
• DAMAGES CAUSED BY MISUSE, ABUSE, ACCIDENTS, FIRE, THEFT, DISAPPEARANCE, MISPLACEMENT, POWER SURGES, VIRUSES, RECKLESS, WILLFUL, OR INTENTIONAL CONDUCT.
• DAMAGES CAUSED BY SERVICING NOT AUTHORIZED BY GATEWAY.
• DAMAGES CAUSED BY USAGE THAT IS NOT IN ACCORDANCE WITH PRODUCT INSTRUCTIONS.
• DAMAGES CAUSED BY FAILURE TO FOLLOW THE PRODUCT INSTRUCTIONS OR FAILURE TO PERFORM PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE.
• DAMAGES CAUSED BY THE COMBINATION OF GATEWAY OR EMACHINES BRANDED PRODUCTS WITH OTHER NON-GATEWAY BRANDED, OR NON-EMACHINES BRANDED PRODUCTS, ACCESSORIES, PARTS OR COMPONENTS.
• SOFTWARE, INCLUDING THE OPERATING SYSTEM AND SOFTWARE ADDED TO YOUR PRODUCT THROUGH OUR FACTORY-INTEGRATION SYSTEM, THIRD-PARTY SOFTWARE, OR THE RELOADING OF SOFTWARE.
• ANY EQUIPMENT OR COMPONENTS THAT WERE NOT INCLUDED IN YOUR PRODUCT AS ORIGINALLY SOLD TO YOU.
• NORMAL WEAR AND TEAR
• COSMETIC DAMAGE THAT DOES NOT AFFECT FUNCTIONALITY.
• PRODUCTS WHERE THE GATEWAY SERIAL NUMBER IS MISSING, ALTERED OR DEFACED.
ANY WARRANTY APPLICABLE TO SOFTWARE, NON-GATEWAY BRANDED, OR NON-EMACHINES BRANDED PRODUCTS IS PROVIDED BY THE ORIGINAL MANUFACTURER.

 

sometimes they write these situations down just to protect themselves, this doesn't necessarily means that they 100% won't accept your case, give it a try, call them.

very sorry to hear that....

 

It sounds to me like the only thing the "Warrenty" covers is...DOA's? Thats a low-blow.

 

Ok, I finally got it to try to install windows, I wiped the drive first. Now it almost finished and says it cannot install the required files, the file does not exist.

bla bla error code 0x80070003, I'm looking it up now.

 

Ok, good news.

I "think" it's the hard drive. I called tech support and we did a few things, it was reading the dvd really slowly, he says it is the hard drive because it's expanding the files so slowly.

He says he is going to send a hard drive, free of charge as long as I send back the old one before 2 weeks. Cool beans

About the shocking, which I brought up last, he said if it does it again to send it in for service. So I guess she loses some data is all. One day after I backed all my data up haha.

 

haha, well goodluck with that

 

After he got off the phone and I made that last post, it went into windows and I got a BSOD saying an error I didn't catch, it restarted and tried to install windows again haha.

Looks like she'll be bugging me for my laptop, which isn't going to happen after she knocked it off today too.