Operarting System Not Found

[W. R. Logan]

Mrs Logan's laptop seems to be on the blink. When she turns it on it just says:

Operarting System Not Found

any Ideas from the Hive Mind on what she can do to sort it out.

I have a big hammer on stand by if none of your suggestions work.

[The Legendary Shark]

Check in there isn't a cd/dvd in the drive.

Try booting from a Windows CD and see if there's a repair or restore to earlier time thingummy.

[Professor Bear]

Also check there aren't any memory cards, flash drives or MP3 players plugged into it during startup, as windows has been known to try and boot up from pretty much any kind of storage device.

[Paul faplad Finch]

I realise you'll assume I'm taking the piss here but "have you tried switching it off and on again?"

Seriously, as big a cliche as that is it worked for me. I went through a period shortly after I got my laptop where I would get that very same message every time I turned it on. It always came on properly on the second attempt.

Of course I know absolutely nothing about computers and could well have been ignoring some big problem that's gonna bite me in the arse somewhere down the line. That said it doesn't seem to happen anymore.

[Buttonman]

I thought I was smart editing the registary to get rid of a bug - huge misteke!

Took 3 hours to get it going again. If you can't get in try control+alt+delete. Go to 'file' and then 'run' and see if you can get your operating system to work from there. I eventually had to reinstall Windows which took ages and I had to phone Microsoft and punch in a 48 digit number and then they gave me a 48 digit number to load up. BTW if it's a Dell your licence will be stuck underneath your laptop. That took me 20 minutes to figure out on its own.

Good luck retaining your hair.

[W. R. Logan]

no cd in the drive, no devices attached, hit ctrl+alt+delete and you go back to seeing Operating system not found.

Put a windows CD in the drive and nothing.

The big hammers looking more promising by the minute.

[Kerrin]

Is it insured?

[The Legendary Shark]

If the pc won't boot from your Windows XP cd (ie, put Widows disk in the cd drive and then reboot computer), try to get into the BIOS. (There should be a line or two as the computer initially starts telling you which key/s to press to enter the BIOS.)

Find something called "First Boot Device" or similar and make it CD/DVD drive then Hard drive or HDD second.

Save those settings and, with the Windows CD in the drive, reboot again.

If that doesn't work, big hammer.

[Jim_Campbell]

I won't say it ...

Cheers

Jim

[W. R. Logan]

I think it may be........

[Dandontdare]

I won't even attempt  a helpful reply cos I know 'nowt. My system was crippled with a virus for weeks but it then apparently fixed itself.

My elderly parents installed broadband last week and I'm just back from a frustrating weekend configuring their settings, installing some security and trying to teach them the basics of emailing and googling. My mum pushes and prods the mouse about till the cursor is over what she wants and then lets go, looks down and stabs at the button. This rarely works. However she has discovered that there's a website that will tell you what people paid for houses in any street you type in, so this will keep her entertained for days.  My dad refuses to click on ANYTHING until he's read every single word on the screen and hovered over every possible link. He gets there eventually, but it takes an age.

[gurnard]

I had this one at work once.  It was a laptop and the HD was knocked a bit loose so that the first boot device was not found, it went all the way down to Network for its boot device and did not find an OS on the network.

So basically do what the_legendary_shark suggested to check that your BIOS is set to the correct boot device and ensure that all those devices are connected correctly, could even mean just pulling the thing out (HD, connector cable) and putting it back in again.  

Good luck

[TheEdge]

as everyone has already said, if theres no External Device its your HDD

Could be a bios issue, or a setting change, check out teh interwebs for a bios/hdd guide


To change a HDD on a laptop is fairly easy if you dont mind pulling out a screwdriver and have a NON HAMMER approach towards things in general.

Bast advice Find a mate that knows what they are doing!!!!!!!

[Bouwel]

Now this is funny. I frequent a number of boards covering a wide degree of interests and all of them have had 'operating system not found' threads over the past two weeks.
It happened to me the other day, but thankfully with a bit of fiddling and several curse words my system is up and running. A full virus check shows nothing.

Odd, eh?

-Bouwel-