Member Avatar for manchurianCEO

Hi all,

A friend brought me this computer, it's a gateway NV53 with windows 7.

The problem was that the HDD was locked. Everytime the computer is turned on, the message "Ennter HDD User Password" appears.

For that, we got a new hard drive for it and a windows 7 installation disk. However, with the new HDD now I get the PHE-E61 error. I changed the boot order to the DVD drive with out good results. Even tried with a dvd with ubuntu and even though I hear the dvd spinning, it eventually ends up with the PHE-E61. Have reset BIOS to default values a few times.

I have put the booting from lan option at the very end of the booting order list to no avail.

When I put back the old hard drive and it consistently gives me the "Enter HDD password" message. Then I put back on the new hard drive and again PHE-E61 error.

Help!

Thank you!

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Member Avatar for rubberman

If you don't have the original system password, then you need to do this:

  1. Wipe disc COMPLETELY. Boot from a live CD/DVD/USB Linux system - and then from a terminal command line window, run the command: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1M
  2. Create a new boot sector / partition table, or just go to #3 (it will create the boot sector / partition table for you).
  3. Install OS from CD/DVD/USB drive - I'd suggest you try a Linux distribution. It's free and will probably work better than Windoze - just my opinion.
Member Avatar for manchurianCEO

Thanks for the suggestion.
Earlier today I digged and took off the CMOS battery for a about an hour but didn't take care of the HDD password issue.

However, now, with the new HDD on, I was able to boot from a Linux Mint installation CD. (I was not able before, not with the new blank HDD)

That's good news so far since it would not boot from a windows 7 dvd.

Now, Linux Mint is still loading but the computer is not mine. If I get it to fully run on the laptop, any idea what to do next as I need to put windows 7 in it.

Taking into account that this HDD is blank, brand new.

Thanks!

Member Avatar for manchurianCEO

Additional details:

Something is logged in that computer that completely rejects windows installation disks.

Linux Mint runs like a charm, but by no means the computer will recognize any cd or DVD related to windows. After some readin, what fits best is that the motherboard has a bad ass virus lodged in.

I tried to reinstall the BIOS with a fresh copy, the problem is that I got the files from gateway but I'm stuck at how to make them run on a linux machine (since the computer has only a copy of linux in its hard drive).

So, input on this would be very appreciated.

I read some stuff about cooking up a bootable CD with the fresh BIOS and some sort of DOS emulator, but all the explanations are written in seasoned linux user language.

So, help would be very appreciated.

Thanks!

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