Well, when I booted it, it took about 7 or 8 minutes to boot up. After it booted it was fine, except it didn't recognize the second DVD drive. I looked and the drive was plugged it correctly.
I spent most of the day deleting programs I didn't want (AOL, Norton, McAfee, etc), then installing stuff I did want (AVG, Zone Alarm, FireFox, etc.) I installed and ran PCTools and removed more than 200 bad registry entries.
Every time I changed something, I had to reboot of course, and it still took several minutes each time. I got online with Gateway and they couldn't find the problem, so they suggested I take it back to Circuit City and have their tech look at it. I did. He ran the restoration disk, and it was going to take hours because it was moving so slowly. He ascertained that the hard drive had problems and that they would return it to Gateway, so they refunded my money.
I came back home and booted the old one back up.
I had gotten a really KILLER deal on that computer. Pentium D with dual processor, 64-bit. 250 gig SATA hard drive, Dual Layer DVD burner and second DVD drive, 1024 mb memory, Windows Media Center software, all the bells and whistles. The "open box" price was $600. and that's why I couldn't resist.
I've found nothing else comparable for much under $1000.
Oh, well. . .
DonM
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DonM