Operating System Not Found!

wolfman

I'll try and explain as briefly as possible....... A friend of mine had the above error message on his PC. I opened it up, cleaned it out, checked leads etc and got him going again. That was a couple of months ago. Now, it has happened again. This time none of the above worked. I put it in my PC and the PC just sat and did nothing only blink the light on the hard drive. Then, I had an old hard drive here with Windows 98 on it. Tried it on my machine, worked fine, told him he could have it.

Went over to him about an hour ago, put it all back together with the new working drive and ...... Operating System Not Found!


Any ideas anybody? It has me stumped

fatmander

Can you boot off a floppy and read the C: drive?
Run Scandisk if you can
Is the hard drive on master, IDE cable connected in the right place to the drive

Also check that correct boot sequence is in Bios, make sure IDE 0 is selected for master.
Try 'fdisk/mbr' from a:\

wolfman

Originally posted by fatmander
Can you boot off a floppy and read the C: drive?

Haven't tried it on his machine


Run Scandisk if you can.... OKEY DOKEY

Is the hard drive on master, IDE cable connected in the right place to the drive

GOOD QUESTION. His old drive was on either slave or cable select, not sure which one because it doesn't show great which is 2 or which is 3. I also tried swapping the jumpers on the working drive tonight but that didn't help

Also check that correct boot sequence is in Bios, make sure IDE 0 is selected for master.The thing is, when I was in the Bios, THAT was set up as the first drive, but under some other section, it didn't show any hard drive and only showed the CD ROM. I think I really need his PC here while getting these suggestions

Try 'fdisk/mbr' from a:\ Will give this a shot also, but why would it not work on his when it worked on my own old PC? Different BIOS or something?

Capt'n Midnight

If all else fails check the BIOS settings for cylinders heads and sectors / drive mode LBA / LARGE / etc..

wolfman

Ha ha ha ha!

NOW, I think is the bit where I tell him to call in a PC repair company.

This is all starting to go over my head. I have a reasonable knowledge of PC's but have never messed with Hard drives before, but having said that I suppose if I had it here in my house and had guys like all of you giving me a dig out!!

I think I'll collect it tomorrow and post back here. By the way, what exactly should I be checking regarding cylinders, heads, sectors etc?

fatmander

It's possiblythat his mobo can only boot off cable select,

How old is the old motherboard(model?) and what size is the drive?

what is the OS?

It could all be about the BIOS, maby controller is dead
Does anything show up when you post the machine? eg
detecting primary master ....success


fdisk/mbr can fix the wierdest of situations concerning hdd's

wolfman

Its about late 98 or early 99 I think. It's a Dell. His hard drive was 6.4 and I put in a 2.1. OS is 98SE

How do you mean post the machine???

fatmander

The post is the beep when you turn on the machine, takes a couple of seconds during that period sometimes you see the
detecting primary master ....XXXXXXX ....(name of master drive)
detecting primary slave (eg)..LGDVD581x
etc
Lets you know if the disk is being picked up in the POST=power on self test.
If the drive ain't there in the post, then the drive ain't registering, before it can use the drive it has to detect it

wolfman

Can't remember for sure, but I don't think it is.

A dell logo comes up, you hear the drive as if the PC is trying to read it (lasts about a second) and then it just comes up with Operating System Not Found

fatmander

Try and press tab key when you start, even better press the following, delete, F1, F2, get into the bios.
See if you can find a mention of primary master in there, should see your hard drive in there
Check 'boot' option is set for primary master 'IDE0'
Don't change anything else,
What about the floppy boot and the C drive?

wolfman

Right. I have the system here now

I have an A: prompt and I can get a prompt but no C:

Invalid drive specification

I cannot run scandisk either. Bad command or file name. I have used delete to get into the Bios and doesn't seem to be right

Bios Version A04
Processor Intel Celeron
Processor Speed 333MHz

Under advanced I go into IDE configuration and IDE controller is set to both. There are options for both, primary, secondary and disabled.

Underneath that

Primary IDE Master [None]
Primary IDE Slave [None]
Secondary IDE Master [CD-ROM CDU701-(SM) ]
Secondary IDE Slave [None]


Then, under BOOT heading

First Boot Device [Hard Drive]
Second Boot Device [Removable Devices]
Third Boot Device [ATAPI CD-ROM Driv]
Fourth Boot Device [Network Boot]

Don't know what the network boot is there for? This is just a standalone PC?

Then, under all the above and still in the BOOT section, I select Hard Drive and it brings up

1. [Bootable Add-in Card]????????????


Any ideas at all guys? By the way, I have run the hard drive in my old Compaq 400 Mhz here again today and it works fine but the minute I put it into his Dell, I get the problem again

fatmander

Your computer at the hardware level cannot see that the drive is there, most likely because

1/ Jumpers wrong on drive(try and find support pics for correct jumper config. on net)
2/ Mobo/IDE controller dead(bye bye mobo)
3/ Hard Drive dead(not the case, as it works in your PC)
4/ IDE Cable Dead(easy to check)

I think you need to keep changing around the jumpers to work.
Chances are it needs to be set to Master, but possibly cable select,
check if the CD drive is on cable select or set to master, that will tell you what way to set the hard drive.

wolfman

Originally posted by fatmander
Your computer at the hardware level cannot see that the drive is there, most likely because

1/ Jumpers wrong on drive(try and find support pics for correct jumper config. on net)

Have it set to cable select as that is what it was originally at. Also tried it with different settings and no luck

2/ Mobo/IDE controller dead(bye bye mobo)

Looking very likely now. Any way of knowing for sure? If it is gone, whats the story with replacing it or is he better off just getting rid of the whole thing?

3/ Hard Drive dead(not the case, as it works in your PC)

That's definite anyway

4/ IDE Cable Dead(easy to check)

Just put my cable in it and still no luck

I think you need to keep changing around the jumpers to work.
Chances are it needs to be set to Master, but possibly cable select,
check if the CD drive is on cable select or set to master, that will tell you what way to set the hard drive.


I checked the CD and I haven't pulled it out but from what I can see, it is also on cable select

By the way, thanks a million for all the help and for the prompt replies

wolfman

By the way, I changed the settings in the Bios and have the full POST displaying on boot now and there is absolutely NO mention of the drive.

It gives the Bios Version
Processor details
Ram details
Cache details

Keyboard found
Mouse found

and
Full details for the CD Rom drive

fatmander

4/ IDE Cable Dead(easy to check)

Just put my cable in it and still no luck
-I mean use a different cable, from your own PC

Sounds as if the mobo is gone, upgrade?
You can use the case, it is ATX, not a lot of point in keeping the power supply as it could have caused the damage.... might have problems rewiring the power switch as a lot of old PC's have fixed front panel connectors

Seeing as you only have a celeron 333(slot 1), your chances of getting a board that takes a 'slot 1 chip' are limited

Best bet is a second hand thunderbird chip(€40) and new cheap Via socket A motherboard(cost 'bout €80), (get one that takes at least DDR333 then you can upgrade in a few years to a fast AMD XP chip)
Gonna need new DDR RAM(128MB DDR 2100 is cheap€30) , as you are probably using SD RAM PC66/100,

Might need a new graphics card(Buy and Sell 32MB €30), if the old dell has agp, there is a good chance it's AGP1(3.3Volt) which can possibly blow some motherboards... a lot of boards will take AGP 1, as many won't
Ifs it's a PCI card, no worries

Good luck!!

Capt'n Midnight

Make sure the drive is spinning up ... Power
plug the drive into the CD cable - it should appear or the CD may dissapper while it's connected.

When Drive is seen in bios and you still get missing os
Boot off a boot disk - eg the startup one in add/remove programs in win 98

at the dos prompt
FDISK /STATUS
to see if the drive can be seen.
If the BIOS settings are different on the two PC's the drive will be seen - but it wont read the files on it because it's looking at them cross eyed.

Net boot option is 'cos there is a connector on the m/b for WOL - wake up on LAN (perhaps not)

Sir Random

You could try putting the drive on IDE2 (disconnect the CD drive) and see if that works.

wolfman

Thanks for all the suggestions guys. I will try all the new ones too. I put the drive back into my old PC last night and gave him a loan of it for a few days because he has some stuff to do, but when I get it back I'll try those suggestions also.

Actually, my next question was going to be about trying it on the CD-ROM cable!

I'll keep you informed as to how I get on. Thanks again. The amount of help on here is unbelievable and everybody willing to do it for nothing.