When I try to reinstall windowsME the RESTORATION DISK starts as usual and then goes
to A:\. I've tried GATEWAY website and they're no help. Does anyone know what I'm
supposed to enter at the A:\ prompt? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Just to be sure you're not doing anything wrong, are you starting the computer with the recovery CD already in the drive?

Also, have you checked your BIOS to be sure the computer can boot from the CD? Some people put the CD before the A: drive, but my own preference is for floppy first, then CD then HD. That way those weird arrangements where the recovery CD isn't bootable will still work.

That raises another point. Is it just a recovery CD, or a CD AND a floppy? If it's just a CD, put it in the drive and reboot. That SHOULD be all you need to do. If it's a CD and floppy, make sure both discs are in the drives before rebooting.

Another thought. I'm wondering whether you've got a bootable CD, but are trying to get to it via a bootable floppy. You CAN do it that way (see below), but it's not the usual method when you're reinstalling, so (temporarily) ditch the "emergency boot disc". You shouldn't need it.

If you're doing everything right and it's still not working, at the A: prompt, try typing d:\setup exactly as shown. I'm assuming your CD drive is D, but it may not be. The boot floppy may change it to something else, as can your setup, partitioned or extra drives for example.

If that doesn't help, at least we'll have eliminated the obvious.

Just a guess . . .

I once ran a recovery on a Compaq Win 98 system. The boot from the recovery CD resulted in the CD becoming the "A:" drive. That's right.

So, at the "A:" prompt, type dir and see what's there. There may be some .exe, .bat or .com files that you're supposed to run (e.g., setup.exe, recover.com). Maybe even a readme.txt file.