no operating system found

by mszakk Jul 6, 2004 12:19PM PDT

A friend of mine called and said all his computer will do is turn on run for a few seconds(about 30)and then it says "no operating system found". so i came to the conclusion that his hard drive is at a lost. how this happen i have no idea but i just want to re-install xp for him. but when i try this it doesnt work. i went into the setup and made sure the computer would boot off the cd-rom. it does and then says "no operating system found". i also tried to put his hard drive in my computer as a slave and my computer would not start. i did also change the jumpers for this. is his hard drive ruined? or am i missing something. if you need more info please ask.
thank you

Discussion is locked

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Re: no operating system found

by Merl Priester Jul 6, 2004 2:44PM PDT

As you noted, even as a slave the drive does not work.
It 99.99% likely it is toast.

You can't install on a dead drive.

Get a new one and try again.

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Re: no operating system found

by mszakk Jul 6, 2004 3:18PM PDT

ok. that is what i thought. is there any reason why it would just go bad?
thanks for your help

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Re: no operating system found

by mp3artists Jul 6, 2004 3:29PM PDT

<ok. that is what i thought. is there any reason why it would just go bad?>

gravity.

how old is the drive ?

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Re: no operating system found

by mszakk Jul 6, 2004 3:49PM PDT

2-21/2 years

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Re: no operating system found

by kebabs Jul 6, 2004 6:29PM PDT

Hi,
I had the same problem (don't know if it was the same cause)
When you go into the bios does it show the correct size
for the drive, if not put in drive parameters manually
also run fdisk and make sure the c: drive is set active
this worked for me.

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Re: no operating system found

by mszakk Jul 7, 2004 12:33AM PDT

hi
the drive is set at the correct size
i ran fdisk and it said no fixed disk present
thanks for your help

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Re: no operating system found

by Merl Priester Jul 7, 2004 1:40PM PDT

There does not need to be a reason.
Hard drives have electical silicon components and
mechanical components that heat and cool and spin.
Failure is not an option it is a given, all that is in
question is when. They do not work forever.
They come with a MTBF (mean time before failure)
Yours failed after 2.5 years, someone elses may run 20 years, another didn't make it one day.

If all else in the computer appears OK you can assume it is only the hard drive, if other problems are showing as well, PSU or mainboard may be toast.

If you suspect the PSU, replace it before going on, a bad PSU will burn out your new components.

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Re: no operating system found

by Ghastlem Jul 8, 2004 10:28AM PDT

I agree with you about MTBF, In my 5 years of exp Hard Drives will usually fail spontaneously or over time...starting with bad sectors or be idopathic in nature. In my experience "No OS found" errors are usually the result of 3 things.
1. Bios config Errors
2. Power Supply rail failures/overloads
3. dead drives.

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help! tried everything

by searchfgold Feb 9, 2009 5:18AM PST

thanks, ok, I've tried everything and i have an old hard drive and it probably got busted, like you said. The problem is, i don't have enough money for a good hard drive, and my standards are pretty high on computer hardware quality. Do you know where I could get a good, but rather cheap drive? thanks,
Rich

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You may want to

by MarkFlax Former Forum moderator Feb 9, 2009 6:46AM PST

repost your question in your own thread, and perhaps in another forum, like the PC Hardware forum, from the "See all forums" link on the left.

This discussion ended in 2004. I doubt any of the posters are watching this discussion any more.

Mark

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Re: no operating system found

by glb613 Jul 6, 2004 7:59PM PDT

I got that message once. It is a hard drive failure. I sure hope your friend was the type to back up his/her data on a regular basis.

no operating system found

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