Gateway error of: No Rom Basic

I picked up a used Gate way desk top comp. at a church yard sale.
every thing was there except monitor, mouse, speakers and hard drive. ( owner said he removed hard drive because it has their private info on it)
the computer is a model ATXSTF OXN Select 1200 made 4/06/01

First Q: is a Gateway, A 100% proprietary machine?...or can I use a Maxtor hard drive and other hard ware and peripherals ?

Second Q:
I installed a used Maxtor 3.2 gig drive I had at the house, thinking it has windows ME installed, and I hooked up a monitor.
When I booted up there were no beeps. I can feel the hard drive spinning. There is RAM , one stick of 120MB
Within 10 seconds, A message appears on the screen stating:
No ROM Basic System Halted.

What does this mean? what does the computer need?

Might it mean the hard drive has no operating system on it?
just so you know, Obviously I am not a computer tech, yet I have some knowledge of the workings of a computer and I can identify the items inside the tower.
I have never owned a Gateway. So I will say, I like the tower design!

thanks, I look forward to your replies.
1-20-2010

 

Greetings, flywelder...

You can use any brand of hardware you wish to use, provided the proper drivers are in place and there is correct motherboard support...

As far as the ROM message: try to access BIOS, see if the hard drive is recognized...you might also try resetting the BIOS by jumper or temporarily removing the CMOS battery...

You might have to purchase a Windows disk to boot to, because even if the hard drive in question has a system installed, any basic motherboard drivers your machine may need may be incorrect...be advised that you'll probably have to greatly increase your RAM to run any recent Windows versions...

 

I think this will be the key. It sounds to me like the system is having trouble with the BIOS. You may have to replace the battery as some systems won't get you into BIOS without a working battery.

 

Thanks Plodr. You are absolutely right it is a problem with the HD being used. Here is another link with some similar tips.

 

Thanks to all,

So a hard drive for this would have to be under 1 gig?

I am curious now to discover what OS this computer would have had brand new, is there a means to discover that or has any one knowledge of this?

 

I had a Compaq built in late 1999 and it came with a 20gb drive and had no problems with a 40gb drive. So I don't think it is the size of the drive.

The "No ROM Basic" message is equivalent to "Operating System Not Found". Try installing an OS on the small HD or using a boot disk/floppy to see if there is anything on the HD.

 

A PC from 2000 or thereabouts should be fine with a drive from 1GB - 30GB, possibly as large as 60GB - 120GB. Access the BIOS setup and check that the drive is set correctly.

Once you set the BIOS correctly to recognise the hard drive, if you start in Safe Mode, ME may be accessible (if the current motherboard is not too different from the original), from there you can begin a reinstall of Windows (from Setup in the folder where the cab files are stored) or delete all the old hardware devices from Device Manager and allow ME to install for the new hardware on reboot.

I'd be very careful about trying to add peripherals, Gateways of this age sometimes had very underpowered PSU's.

 

See if you can find your serial number on the tag and search it at Gateway to find the specifications.

 

Re: Gateway error of: No Rom Basic, New Update, and Thank yous'

I think The computer will work! Thanks to all your suggestions, I think it will work.
What I did was I removed the jumper from cmos and reinstalled it. I rebooted and pressed F1 and seconds later, I was looking at the cmos! I now must find a usable . clean used IDE hard drive, load an operating system and I am off to the races!
Great big Thanks go out to all who helped me !!!