Gateway fed 1000 operating system windows ME bios not detecting usb

[mharris3960]

When I go into the bios (f10) I go into boot and it comes up with first device, second, third and so on. in the options for the boot devices, I try every option and the usb is bootable and plugged in!! trying to replace ME to windows 7. Please help!!!!!

 

[mharris3960]

Now it is saying invalid boot diskette:
insert boot diskette into drive A:

 

[jimpz]

I'm going to take a quick (and educated) guess here & say a system THAT old doesn't allow USB devices to BE bootable.,
early systems w/ USB ports could still only boot from hard drives, floppy drives, optical drives & (opmetimes) a drive on the network.

 

[mharris3960]

Fixed the invalid disk part

 

[mharris3960]

Then how do you put a new OS sowtware eg.Windows 7 on there using a USB image(iso)?

 

[jimpz]

These systems were never designed to use a USB image for booting, it would have to be on a floppy or cd/dvd.

 

[mharris3960]

But you can put it on there with a cd, right?

 

[jimpz]

Actually I believe the iso size is around 3 gigs, which would probably mean a DVD.
The other concern I'd have is the amount of memory ( I think that gateway maxed out at 512mb, I believe win 7 recommends 1 gig & needs 2 to run reasonably well. There are cases where people get it to run w/ less than 1 gig, but I'd expect lousy performance.. I'd also be concerned about getting all the drivers you need for that machine to run win7, as it was designed for ME.

 

[mharris3960]

But when I select the dvd drive it doesn't boot of it. Instead it boots into Windows ME

 

[jimpz]

Does your system have a DVD reader, or just a CD player? I believe that system is old enough not to necessarily have a DVD reader/player in it. I also think your chances of getting Win 7 to run on that system are pretty slim.

 

[mharris3960]

Any operating systems that you think would do other than ME?

 

[DocBrown]

You could probably try win XP

 

[mharris3960]

Also, I have an external hard drive and do you think it would work?

 

[jimpz]

The external hard drive is probably USB, if so, no, it won't work.
While XP will most likely work, even the latest (SP 3) might have trouble running well on that system.

 

[gregrocker]

Run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor to know for sure.

Doubtful.