I have a SCSI boot drive, running XP Professional SP1, with a large EIDE storage drive. I have been plagued with an occasional "Operating System not found" message upon trying to boot -- on and off for probably about a year. However, it only happened OCCASIONALLY until now... After a virus, I reinstalled XP Professional (it didn't destroy all data on my SCSI drive, although I had told it that it could). Now, the system will not boot at all... same "OS not found" error each time I try.
Here's the twist: I put the XP Setup disk back in, but got distracted, and when I came back I noticed that the SCSI HDD's copy of Windows XP ACTUALLY DOES BOOT when the XP Setup CD is in as long as you do not type a key when it says "Type any key to boot from CD". Once up, the XP Setup disc can be removed and the system operates totally normally.
So, I read through the postings I could find, and tried the closest matches (FIXMBR, FIXBOOT, copy ntldr, reinstall Windows) but nothing changes the result. My suspicion is that the bootstrap process is lacking something on my SCSI HDD's Windows install, so it flips over control to the bootldr for the CD, but then the CD yields control back to the SCSI HDD's Windows install as long as I don't type a key.... but I have yet to be able to prove this by determining what the HDD's copy of Windows is missing.
Anyone have an idea for me to try? Am I on the right track?
Thanks,
Bilbo
Here's the twist: I put the XP Setup disk back in, but got distracted, and when I came back I noticed that the SCSI HDD's copy of Windows XP ACTUALLY DOES BOOT when the XP Setup CD is in as long as you do not type a key when it says "Type any key to boot from CD". Once up, the XP Setup disc can be removed and the system operates totally normally.
So, I read through the postings I could find, and tried the closest matches (FIXMBR, FIXBOOT, copy ntldr, reinstall Windows) but nothing changes the result. My suspicion is that the bootstrap process is lacking something on my SCSI HDD's Windows install, so it flips over control to the bootldr for the CD, but then the CD yields control back to the SCSI HDD's Windows install as long as I don't type a key.... but I have yet to be able to prove this by determining what the HDD's copy of Windows is missing.
Anyone have an idea for me to try? Am I on the right track?
Thanks,
Bilbo