NEED HELP RE: WINDOWS AND “OPERATING SYSTEM NOT FOUND”

[Concerned]

NEED HELP RE: WINDOWS AND “OPERATING SYSTEM NOT FOUND”

[goldstategop]

I think your start up Windows files got corrupted. That's where two things always save you grief down the road: back up your entire hard disk to a CD with Ghost or some other cloning software so you can restore your computer if Windows should ever die on you and install a copy of Goback on your computer. Unlike Windows XP Restore, it lets you revert to an earlier time (when your computer worked) even when Windows won't boot up with just a click of your mouse. All is not lost with your data and I wouldn't bother with complicated DOS commands. Try reinstalling Windows over itself and when you get back in back up your data immediately. And then proceed to do either or both of the back up steps listed above. Good luck in retrieving your data and getting Windows up and running again.

[Samurai_Jack]

Humility visits upon every one of us, the only question is whether we seek it out in small doses or if we wait until humility finds us and we are forced to take a large infusion.

Good luck

[Brad C.]

This same thing just happened to my daughter the other night on her emachine computer. She "tried and tried" to make it work, and came to me in tears that all of her school work was gone, was there anything I could do she asked. I rebooted the machine several times and got the same message you did. So I got out the emachine "restore" disk, which told me that all data would be lost. Not wanting to do that, I rummaged around and found an boot disk from another system in the house and tried to insert it in the A: drive. Which had a disk in it, without an operating system on it.
Removing the disk, the system came up without a problem. I was not familiar with the new error message, I liked the old one that said "system disk not found...." much easier to understand.

[MarkL]

There is another option to trying to recover your data without removing the hard drive from your computer, although you will need either a bootable CD or floppy drive.

Symantec has a product known as Ghost. This software allows you to backup an entire disk partition to an image file for you to restore at a later date. Corporations buy licenses of ghost to allow them to "clone" hundreds of computers at a time, with all being configured identically.

However, there is another use for ghost. On systems that can not be repaired, without reinstalling the operating system, but where the disk partition is not damaged, you can use ghost to create an image to a network server, and then use another program called "Ghost Explorer" to extract any files you want recovered. Then, after wiping the disk drive, and reinstalling your applications, you can copy the files you recovered back over to your computer.

I've used this on more than one occasion where other methods wouldn't work.

Mark

[boris]

Never store data without backups.

Hard disks--being delicate rotating machinery--are the weakest link in a system.

Backup your data at least weekly. I recommend Novaback but there are many other options. I used to use 4-mm DAT tapes but I have recently moved to DVD and drive mirroring.

I had my epiphany after watching 600 MB of data depart for Uranus; I became a backup fanatic on that occasion.

--Boris

[AppyPappy]

Nothing personal but the recurring theme in your post is "I don't know how". Take it to someone who does. Don't try and mess with it yourself. I do this stuff for a living. If you know a guru, that's even better than CompUSA.

[Izzy Dunne]

I don't know what Alouette means by "After it goes through POST, press the F2 key to get to setup.

POST = Power-On Self-Test :
It's different for every model, but they all go thru a series of tests on power-on. Testing how much memory, testing ports, testing this, testing that. Usually you get a couple of seconds to hit a special key (F2 is common, but not universal) to get you into SETUP mode, which is where you configure what type of disk drive is there, what type of CD-ROM, etc, etc.

Consider using VirtualPC on your Mac.

[applemac_g4]

When you buy Norton Antivirus, it comes with a year's worth of free downloadable updates, then you have to buy a subscription. I wouldn't mess with trying to remove the hard disk from the laptop. If it's starting and getting to the point you've mentioned, and isn't making any funny grinding noises I'd almost guarantee that this is strictly a software problem.

Try booting the laptop from a startup disk and copying whatever critical datafiles you've got on there to the floppy.

After that, there's probably a reformat and reinstall of your software in your near future.

[Alouette]

I don't know what Alouette means by "After it goes through POST, press the F2 key to get to setup.

"Operating System not found" is a BIOS error. What it means is that the system cannot locate the primary drive.

POST is Power On Self Test. This is the memory and BIOS check that the computer goes through when it is first turned on. Newer computers do not show a POST screen, while the self test executes the company logo (Dell, Gateway, whatever) is displayed. Pressing the F2 key at this point will take you to the BIOS setup.

In setup, press F9 to restore BIOS defaults, F10 to save and exit. This will restore the location of the primary drive to the BIOS. (There should be a menu on the BIOS setup screen that tells you what function keys to use for Sony, F9 and F10 are standard on most systems)

[TechJunkYard]

If DOS won't list a directory on the drive then FDISK /MBR will rewrite a standard master boot record without disturbing anything else.

Be careful with this. IIRC, Stage 1 of the NT Bootloader lives in the MBR, and it knows where Stage 2 is in the actual boot partition, it loads Stage 2 and Stage 2 then loads the rest of the OS. If you use a DOS-based FDISK to wipe the MBR, you'll pretty much guarantee that NT/XP partition will never boot again.

[js1138]

I DID get FREQUENT FREEZE UPS near the end...

Frequent freeze ups are consistent with disk drive problems. What could be happening is the dirve is doing multiple retries, which puts performance in the tank. Eventually a bad spot occurs in a key Windows file and it won't boot.

I will be candid in saying I don't know the best way to deal with this, but the safest way is to pay someone to copy the data files to another drive, then reinstall windows.

SORRY FOR THE CAPS, BUT IT MAY BE POSSIBLE TO BOOT THE MACHINE FROM AN EXTERNAL USB DRIVE AND COPY THE FILES THAT WAY.

[TechJunkYard]

"Operating System not found" is a BIOS error.

No, you're past the BIOS at this point. You'd get a similar error trying to boot a blank formatted diskette.

BIOS has passed control to the bootloader in the Master Boot Record, and the bootloader is complaining that it can't load from the boot partition.

[MississippiMan]

Real bummer, sorry. I looked long and hard at SpamKiller, but wound up with SpamInspector instead, which works beautifully as a plugin in Outlook Express. I'm no fan of McAfee products anymore.

MM

[visualops]

POST is the Power On Self Test. Most people will recognise it as the white text on black screen that runs thru before windows starts.
Many factory machines (i.e. Compaq etc) hide this activity behind a logo.
The purpose of accessing the BIOS is to have it autofind the drive. Sometimes that is all that's needed after a crash.
When the machine looks for a boot sector and doesn't find one(or one it recognises) you'll get the operating system not found error. The boot sector contains the MBR (master boot record).

[RedWing9]

Was it a virus or a bad spot on the disk?

Even if it is a virus, as long as you don't boot from the drive (boot sector infection), or execute an infected file, you are safe. I've never heard or seen a virus that propogates itself during a partition table read.

[RedWing9]

Humility visits upon every one of us

There is a time for humbleness and then there is a time when you just have to tell everyone you're right and their wrong... :o)

[RedWing9]

I think I should contact Microsoft tomorrow and see what THEY suggest.

That's an expensive venture. Did you try the recover option? Did you read the links I provided you? Did you understand them? If you don't understand them, print them and take them to someone who will.

[Snowy]

I think I should contact Microsoft tomorrow and see what THEY suggest.

Bwwwaahahahaha! *snort!* You don't want to do that. They are useless and expensive. It would be better to google.

[visualops]

In checking over your post, I see you mention you have no floppy drive. In that case all suggestions re: boot disk are no help.
Secondly, I see at Sony specs for the machine that the hard drive has 2 partitions, divided roughly 40/60. 20/20 hindsight but you should always store data off the C: drive.
With no floppy drive, if auto-detecting the drive in the bios fails, then your best bet is pulling the drive out.
Do you know if you have fat32 or NTFS as the file system?

[monkeyshine]

Right. Can't you start up windows from the CD?