Operating system not found...

robkellyj

Member
I'm running an HP Laptop with Vista Home Premium.

On start up (once I get past the screen with all the "Hit F1 to..., Hit F6 to...."), where it would normally boot to Vista, I get "Operating system not found." I just completed a system restore about a week ago and wonder if something went wrong with that, and might be what instigated this current issue (everything worked great for about 3 days).

I'm fairly sure the drive is "working," as in, I can hear it whirring when I turn on the laptop. So, I've spent the last couple of hours looking up how get the HD to boot, and so far no luck. I can't order a recovery disk from Microsoft because the DVD in the laptop does not work (it quit on me over a year ago - nothing will play in it; I believe it is a hardware issue). I've checked the boot order immediately on start up, and even tried changing it to HD first, just see if that would work - no joy.

So, my question is, is there anything I can try short of removing the hard drive from the laptop and trying to boot it up on another machine (as I've read elsewhere to try)? Is it possible to run EasyBCD from an external hard drive or USB stick and boot the laptop (remember - the internal DVD player does not work)? ALL I want to accomplish is to get the laptop running to where I can copy files stored there - after that, I have no further use for the machine, so I'm willing to try any recommendations (up to and possibly including hitting it with a sledge hammer).

ANY help will be much appreciated - but help that leads to a resolution could lead to (take your pic): a) Christmas & birthday cards for a year, b) home-made jam (you pick the fruit, c) venison (you pick the cut), d) I'll call and SING "happy birthday" to the person of your choice, once (I actually have a very nice voice). :booyah:
 
If you did a restore 3 days prior and now the system is saying that there is no OS found, then there is an issue with the hard drive. There is no reason why a system would do that other than the drive going bad and losing sectors and partition data.

The only thing I can suggest is to get Unetbootin and an ISO of Ubuntu. Use Unetbootin to put Ubuntu on a Flash drive and boot from it. There use the Live version of Ubuntu to get your files off of there.
 
If you did a restore 3 days prior and now the system is saying that there is no OS found, then there is an issue with the hard drive. There is no reason why a system would do that other than the drive going bad and losing sectors and partition data.

The only thing I can suggest is to get Unetbootin and an ISO of Ubuntu. Use Unetbootin to put Ubuntu on a Flash drive and boot from it. There use the Live version of Ubuntu to get your files off of there.

If I can still get files off of it, I don't care what the issue is. I just need a one-time, in-and-out retrieval method.

I will try what you suggest - and can't thank you enough for suggesting it. :tongueout:
 
You can download a create a boot USB drive with just one program. It is a very useful boot CD that you will use in the future for fixing your own machine and saving your friends' files, too.

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Parted Magic disk partitioning, PC repair, and file recovery tool (Bootable CD or USB image)
If you prefer a bootable USB key, download and run Linux Live USB Creator. Choose the Parted Magic distro, and it will download it and automatically create a bootable USB key.


This CD (or key) contains many useful tools. You can partition, recover files, recover lost partitions, make disk images (by several different methods), transfer files between media, scan for viruses (It can serve as an Alternative Trusted Platform for search and elimination of rootkits and bootkits), examine and benchmark hardware, access the internet, and much more.
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