Operating System Not Found

[JonDTHoang]

Hopefully my post will help others with a similar problem. If you have the problem Operating System Not Found when booting up your computer, it may be due to it overheating like me. Also, my computer's light indicating it was accessing the hard drive would constantly be on. To fix it I simply cool it down in front of a large fan for about 10 minutes and it works again until I next shut it down. Just recently though I had installed a second fan in my computer to eliminate the need for me to do that to make it more convenient. It was successfully installed and I enjoyed several days worth of not having to leave my computer on to avoid the problem, not taking it to a fan to cool it down, and having the light not be on which made my computer faster ( but louder ). But after the first couple of days, my fan still works ( I can still feel cool air coming from the back), but it seems to have no effect, I feel it may have even made my computer slower than it initially was. Why is my fan no longer effective and how can I make it effective again? How can I prevent the light that indicates it is accessing the hard drive ( the one with the picture of the cylinder ) to stop being on and rather occasionally blink? Is there any effective way to keep my computer cool that is cheap?

 

[raybay]

Unless your computer is very, very hot... 65degreesC, heat should not be the problem... but the drive could be defective... particularly if the computer has slowed down.

But it could also be an infestation of a virus or malware.

 

[JonDTHoang]

I just did a Windows Live One Care scan and I removed 45 viruses, got all of my drives defragged, and did a disk clean up. The light on my computer still stays on and I still get the error "Operating System Not Found" like when I hadn't installed a second fan.

 

[raybay]

Obvsiously damage was done. Run your Windows XP full system disc in repair mode, or run the Windows Service Pack 2 full install over again.

 

[sevy]

hi, I am having a very similar problem. I have a 5 yrs old Toshiba laptop. Just recently (last week) i had the fan replaced because it was heating up and shutting down. It was working fine so I decided to run a virus check. As it was checking, I left and came back a few hours later only to find out that my screen was black and I get "Operating system not found". Unfortunately, the HD isn't recognized in the BIOS. I haven't backed up my drive in 2 years (mainly cuz my Cd burner isn't working) and I cannot lose my data. I am planning on getting a new computer anyway so all I care about is recovering my data. What are the chances this is possible, given that the BIOS doesn't recognize the HD ? Is it possible that, when I had the fan replaced, a wire was unplugged ? Any advice will be greatly appreciate it ! Thanks !

 

[Aolish]

your xp install is probably corrupted in someway. i recommend doing a repair or a complete reinstall of xp from scratch.

 

[raybay]

Probably a bad hard drive. Five years is a very long time for a laptop hard drive.
You have a fairly good chance of recovering the data... about 77% to 85% depending on the drive... If you have the Original Toshiba drive...

You can buy an adapter for anywhere from $3.25 to $9.95 at www.geeks.com, and several other online stores, as well as Frys and CompUSA.
This allows you to put the laptop drive into a desktop computer as a slave. The extra power of the desktop will usually encourage the laptop drive to turn long enough to drag and drop all your data to a free folder in the master hard drive.
Do NOT turn the desktop off until you are done. You can have a little better luck if you refrigerate the laptop drive down to 35 or 40 degrees over night.

Alternately, you can put the laptop drive into a usb external case as a slave and do the same thing, but there the chances drop to about 45 percent... perhaps due to the power difference.

Plan ahead. Make notes on where the data is probably located... and have more than enough space on the master hard drive.

If you don't know for sure, get some help from a person knowledgeable about data structure and windows structure on a hard drive... since this trick may not last more than a half hour to an hour.
Good luck. Let us know how it all turns out.