"Operating system not found"

andysdad

andysdad

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4 year old laptop; running fine, started beeping then won't reboot (message above).

BIOS says no Primary - hardware fail of the HDD?

Tried Acronis Boot disk - no hard drives found - hardware fail?

Tried it in a caddy on another PC - does not appear in Explorer - hardware fail or MBR/Sector 0 error?

I think it's a hardware fail, but any other suggestions gratefully received - it's SWMBO's PC :mmmm

A
 
I'm not brilliant with Lappy's but suspect the hard drive is fecked.......

Hold the line, someone who knows what they're talking about will be along shortly..... :comfort
 
If Acronis can't see it when you have it in a caddy in the other PC as well as not seeing it in the laptop, it could well be fubared.

Does the disk make any noise, or get warm, when it's running?
 
FUBAR

it is - anyone know whether a specialist could get data off it? and how many £?

Am now rebuilding on spare HDD; latest backup April 2010 :rolleyes: Doh!

Thanks for the advice so far

A
 
depends on what the disk problem is, if there is no noise then it might be the motor that is shot, and so the specialist can fit a new one to get the data off.

Something that has worked for me in the past is to connect the disk up with cables, so that you can pick it up when running. Hold the disk so that it is horizontal, and rotate it gently clockwise/anti-clockwise, perhaps a quarter turn. If the motor bearings are "sticky" then this might, just might, help the motor get the disk spinning. When the disk is spinning you can feel it acting like a gyroscope if you try and tilt the drive, this is another way of knowing if it is going.
 
Getting the data off professionally will cost you lots.

Shugie has some good ideas. You might want to consider putting it in the fridge for a while too - some problems are heat related and cooling the drive can buy you some time.

A trick I have used in the past is to buy an identical disk and to swap over the circuit boards (not for the faint hearted, but at least you don't have to solder, at least in my experience). If it is a dodgy circuit board, this gives you a fighting chance of reading the data. It's about 3 years since I did it last, but it sounds like yours is old enough to be worth trying, although finding a suitable disk may be difficult.

By the way, congratulations on having any form of backup - you're still ahead most computer users! (...scuttles off to start up SyncToy, it's been a week)
 
Shugie

tried your test -disk spins up (and sounds horrid in a quiet way!); still no joy. R.I.P.

Rebuilding going well, just have to find all those e-mails since April!

A
 
Have you tried the freezer trick (yes don't laugh) - I have had about 90% success rate on data recovery using this fix.

Take drive out, seal drive in a airtight bag.

Place in bottom of freezer for at least 4 hours.

Remove drive from freezer and bag, connect as slave to a machine with working primary drive and o/s.

Fire up the machine (note you are likely to get quite a lot of condesation on outside of drive so sit it somewhere it will be safe to drip).

Give it a try.

Basically the chill down reduces tolerances and can make the drive leap into life.

It will only run for a small amount of time (if it will restart).

If it does fire up, do a move not a copy of your data to the good drive - that way if you have to do a rechill you can see where you are up to.
 
Freezing disks

RJS - thanks for the tip; may try it (PC World and others want £100 to "try" data recovery.

IMO all those girlie e-mails about shopping and Facebook are better off lost :D

Went to PC World and bought her a netbook - Packard Bell Dot S2 (top performer in some PC mag) - £230

BUT if you have a (10 year old, XP SP1, 256MB, no use to anyone) laptop that has a pulse - get £50 off. So £180! Bargain. Upgrade to 2Gb cost me £32 from Crucial.

Thanks everyone for the advice.

Thought for the day - can anyone answer why netbooks (and small motorcycles) which have all the components of their larger cousins only cost half as much?

A
 
quote - Thought for the day - can anyone answer why netbooks (and small motorcycles) which have all the components of their larger cousins only cost half as much?

The marketing answer is small production runs but with all the transport costs etc...

real reason is because they can, it's "whatever the market will bear" in other words if you keep paying they'll keep charging
 
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Netbooks are cheaper because they are basically simple hardware: just a mainboard, RAM and HDD, no optical drive therefore a much less compicated assembly in the factory.

I bought the wife an Asus 1001HA netbook for university recently with a cheap low spec 3-cell battery for £197and she loves it, it runs XP so was sold as 'new old stock' yet she prefers it to the severely feature-limited Win7 bundled with most netbooks. Even the battery lasts at least 3 hours and all her studies go onto a USB memory stick as backup and easy transfer to my higher spec desktop machine and NAS storage server. The only shortfall is no bluetooth but a cheap tesco USB dongle takes care of that. The 160GB HDD is plenty for office etc.

It also comes in handy for use in the garage eg GS911 or Vag-Com as the battery lasts ages.
 
Nippy Normans supply Touratech, Wunderlich, Desert Fox and many other makes of accessories.
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