Hi.

My girlfriend has a gateway computer, that I had to factory restore. Upon booting up, it goes to a screen that says "other user" And asks for a username and a password. We never put ANY password on the computer. We have tried the name of the computer, and hitting enter, but no dice.

What do I do?

What windows is it?

Oops sorry, Vista 32 bit. Now it is saying "c:\windows\system32\winloader.exe is missing." Compusa didn't give her a windows disk so she cannot recover. My question now, is if I buy win7 "upgrade," could it fix her problem?

In that case you have to reinstall the windows again you can try booting the windows on the safe mode and click on administrator without any password.. see if that helps...

Sadly when swhe got the computer from Compusa about three years ago, they gave her a "recovery" disk that was supposed to help her and no windows disk, even after I asked them for one.
Her recovery disk is only useful as a drink coaster.

I can get the upgrade from Vista to 7 through my schools Microsoft education store at a reasonable price. But before I buy it and make a disk and try to fix her computer (and also upgrade her OS,) I want to sure it will work.

Otherwise I have to find a computer repair shop and hope I don't get soaked on the repair.

Did you try using the Recovery partition? When you first boot, there should a choice to Press F11 for Recovery (or something like that).

It won't even let me get that far. I saw something about re-directing the startup to look for the non-corrupt copy of the file elsewhere on the drive, but I can't even get C:\ to come up. It boots from cd first, (which is empty, & all usb devices off,) and it goes straight to the error screen which gives me the option of either inserting the windows CD, (which CompUSA refused to give me,) or quitting. Which shuts off the computer. If I try turning it back on again, it repeats the process.

The choice to enter the recovery partition comes during the POST (Power On Self Test) Before The hard drive is even read. So if you don't see the screen advising you how to enter Setup and Recovery the machine has serious problems.

Well, Sorry I haven't responded, but I have been busy with schoolwork. We finally gave up, although I have a copy of win 7 on my computer, and as soon as I can figure out what I need to do, I'll install it. My system can handle it, but I'm worried about downloaded programs, and saved files. The download from Microsoft didn't come with any instructions other than to run the installer. Grrrr! I don't want to think I wasted $40.00 on this.

One of my girlfriend's classmates told her that they had the same problem and ended up ordering recovery disks from the computer manufacturer's website. So my girlfriend ordered the disks, and on Monday they arrived, and I factory restored her computer and helped her get some programs that needed to be added. So far I am hammering out little details, like networking and removing unwanted programs that are now on her computer, but she is able to use it now.

Thanks for all the help though, I really appreciated it.

First, an OS install is pretty easy. The instructions are on screen as you go along. That's why there are no need to for detailed instructions. IN your case, just insert the disk and power up.

If you are upgrading from Vista Home Premium to Win 7 Home Premium you can do an upgrade.

Thanks! I happen to have both. (Microsoft, BTW offers good student discounts on it's software.)
I have'nt done it yet, I was waiting on more information about compatibility issues with Adobe CS4 suite. But I think I am ready now, and just need to block some time (I've read it takes 1 1/2 hours minimum to install,) to do it.

But thanks again for helping me.