Operating System Not Found

[w0rmh0l3]

For starters: I have an Alienware Area 51-m laptop. A few days ago, I decided it was time to format it and start over from scratch. Popped the XP disc in, formatted the drive, and let setup copy files over to begin the installation. When the computer rebooted, however, I got the message "operating system not found." This, I thought, was very odd, because the XP installer should have placed a record in the MBR. Following is a list of the things I tried, with no success.

From the BIOS:

+ Set boot order to CD, then removable devices, then HDD.

From the XP recovery console:

+ fixmbr \Device\Harddisk0\Partition1 did not have any success. Whenever it ran, it greeted me with the message that I had a "non-standard or invalid" master boot record, and when it completed, it said it was successful. I'm not quite sure that it was.

+ format \mbr C: would not run for some reason, it kept saying "WARNING: are you sure you want to do this?" and when I would press "yes" it would tell me I was giving it invalid drive parameters, or something to that effect.

+ bootcfg /list shows (after setup has copied files to drive and rebooted)

Total entires in boot list: 1

[1] "Microsoft Windows XP Professional"
OS Load Options: /fastdetect
OS Location: C:\WINDOWS

That's correct, isn't it? Then why isn't the laptop loading it!

From "the Ultimate Boot CD":

+ I ran the IBM/Hitachi drive fitness test (the hard drive in this laptop is a IBM travelstar) and it did not detect any errors, both during the quick and advanced tests.

+ I tried using smart boot manager to boot the remainder of the XP setup. When it tried to load "Harddisk" it responded with operating system not found.

+ I tried using Gujin, and when it booted, it showed me this:

0: IDE/lba master@blah blah, size 38154 MB, 1 partitions
1: BIOS ox00 C/H/S: 80/2/18, size 1440 Kb, 1 partitions
Analyze filesystems: found 2 ways to boot and 0 initial RAM disks

The actual program lets me try to boot the following two options:

F1: IDE/lba master@0x1F0,0x3F6: MBR: unknown
F2: IDE/lba master@0x1F0,0x3F6: NTFS/HPFS: part 1: unknown

Attempting to boot F2 says error loading (hiding/unhiding partition) disk content unchanged. F1 simply gives me "error loading operating system" again.

+ MBRwork after loading says "ABORT: Hard Drive Read Failed!"

+ MBRtool, while booting, shows: InitDisk no hard disks detected

So beyond all of that, I took the hard drive out of the laptop, hooked it up to a 44/40 pin adapter, attached it to my main desktop, and formatted the hell out of it. I also ran the diagnostic again. The drive tests fine.

Is there something I'm missing here? Could there be a boot record on the motherboard or BIOS that I'm not clearing? Or is the IDE controller shot?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

[23skidoo]

Leave it hooked up to your desktop and use the IBM/Hitachi Drive Fitness Test to do a complete low-level format of the drive, then run the DFT on the drive to make sure there are no problelms. Once that's done reinstall it in the lappy, go to Bootdisk.com and download the WinXP bootdisk maker applet to make yourself a nice new xp boot disk. Then set your bios boot order to Floppy/cdrom/hdd0 and use the XP bootdisk to Fdisk, partition and reformat the drive, remembering to power completely off and not just reboot or ctl-alt-delete between steps. Once that's done you should be able to do a nice clean os install with your os cd.

 

[w0rmh0l3]

See, the thing is, I've basically done all of that except use the IBM utility to actually format it. I've used about 3 other utilities at this point to format the drive. Each time they do, and I go to run the XP setup, it says it doesn't recognize the format of the partition and then proceeds to let me select "format NTFS or format NTFS quick." It's frustrating.

I'm also curious: do you think the XP boot disk will really help? My system has no problem booting the XP setup CD at all, and that is what has been doing the formatting all along. Also, this laptop has no floppy drive, so it would have to be made into a bootable CD anyway..

 

[23skidoo]

The problem is all the residual crap left on the drive from all your attempts to fix it, so the best cure I know is using the DFT utility to do a complete low-level format. Once you've done that using the XP boot floppy to Fdisk, partition and format the drive in FAT32 will allow your Windows install cd to recognize the drive; if you want an NTFS partition instead you can do that later in the install when it asks you whether you want to install on the existing FAT32 partition or reformat it to NTFS.

No floppy drive is tantamount to Tyranny IMHO as it severely limits your ability to troubleshoot any system. Any way you can access another system that does have both a floppy drive and a burner to extract the DFT to a floppy and then burn it to a cd? Same with the XP boot disk (don't think they would co-exist on the same cd)?

The problem with all those other utils you're attempting to use is they only high-level format, leaving lots of legacy odds and ends on the physical disk; a manufacturer's drive utility with a complete low-level format (writing zeros to every single sector on the drive) is the only way I know of to really clean things out.

 

[w0rmh0l3]

Hmm, interesting. I already have the DFT on a CD, and I've used it a couple times before. It's actually doing the low level format you spoke of right now. It's been going strong for quite a while, I'm sure it'll keep going for even longer. Should I also do erase boot sector after the low level format is done?

The boot CD I'm using has FreeFDISK, Extended FDISK, and Special FDISK but not plain old FDISK. Think one of those would do the trick? I don't have a boot disk with normal old FDISK on it, but I'm sure I could make one if necessary.

And maybe it'll make you feel better, but it isn't my laptop - all of MY systems have floppies in them. Thanks for all the help by the way!

 

[w0rmh0l3]

Something else interesting to note:

FreeFDISK, Extended FDISK, and Special FDISK all report the same thing when the hard drive is in my laptop: "InitDisk no hard disks detected"

But yet when the hard drive is hooked up to my desktop with a 44/40 pin adapter, all of those FDISK programs have no problem accessing the drive at all.

Bad IDE controller?

 

[w0rmh0l3]

Also: I looked up the PhoenixBIOS user manual online, and it said the message "Operating system not found" meant the BIOS was not finding an operating system on drive A: or drive C:. However, that's exactly where the boot record is pointing to - C:\WINDOWS! So why isn't the BIOS finding an operating system on drive C?

 

[23skidoo]

I don't know anything about all those Fdisk variants you mention, guess I'm just a traditionalist or something. I know my son who geeks for a living has tried out the Ultimate Boot CD and always ends up coming downstairs to ask if he can borrow my XP bootdisk. I use either the xp bootdisk from bootdisk.com or the W98se bootdisk when I can't find the other one cause someone borrowed it and forgot to return it. The primary difference is the 98se bootdisk has problems recognizing large hard drives when you are running Fdisk, but if you're just installing a single partition, no big deal; if you are going to do more than one partition on the drive, then use the option to partition by percentage rather than size in mb.

Now you can do all the primary work and testing with the drive on your desktop, but once it comes to os install, you've got to put it back in the lappy. Does the bios "see" the drive when it's installed? Is the bios config for the drive set to Auto? Once you eliminate any physical problems with the drive itself by the low-level format and running the advanced test in DFT, then if you are still having problems you could have either a power connector/ide connector/cable or a controller problem.

Not your laptop huh? Nice of you to carry water for someone else. Sorry I didn't get back to this any sooner, but my evening just kind of disappeared on me. I'll check back Friday morning to see how things worked out.

 

[w0rmh0l3]

Oh there's something in it for me, don't worry about that either.

I'll try your traditional fdisk tomorrow, that might have better success. All the fdisk tools from the ultimate boot CD either give me "no fixed disks detected" or "InitDisk no hard disk detected" when I try to run them.

The BIOS does in fact see the drive, and it is set as the primary master. When I hit enter on it, it shows me a bunch of details about the drive (none of which I can change.) It says the drive type is "auto." Interesting to see that the side panel says "all items on this menu cannot be modified in user mode. If any items require changes, please consult your system Supervisor." That something Alienware did? Or does PhoenixBIOS come standard like that?

I'm starting to fear the worst. It can't be a loose power connector, could it? The drive gets its power from the 44 pin IDE interface. And I'm sure it's snug, because I took it out twice and double checked it each time I put it back in. Isn't it rather rare for an IDE controller to die?

I'll try the XP bootdisk tomorrow, and I will also try using GRUB to boot windows setup, since no other bootloaders had any luck.

Thanks again for your help!

 

[23skidoo]

Remember now, when you use the XP bootdisk you are going to Fdisk the hard drive--Create a Primary Partition and then Make the Partition Active. If you are going to create more than one partition you will need to decide how large your Primary/Active partition is going to be, then Create and Extended Partition and create the additional volumes in the extended partition.

Be sure you do a complete power-off shutdown between creating your Primary partition and formatting the drive or creating an extended partition with additional volumes in the partition; the BIOS needs that little breather to gather it's thoughts to sort things out and recognize your new partition (s).

Naturally, all this is after having completed a low-level format with the DFT utility.

 

[w0rmh0l3]

So I ended up making an XP boot disc, threw it in, booted from it, went to do fdisk and sure enough - "no fixed disks present."

I'm completely at a loss at this point. My only shot now is a GRUB boot disc to try to manually boot the XP setup image on the hard drive, but I think that's going to fail with some weird error too (I mean, it just has to, right?)

I think this has become a hardware problem. Aren't Alienwares supposed to be supreme laptops? This thing shouldn't be dead within 2 years.

 

[Kappo]

All hardware fails. I dont care who puts it together.

To me it sounds like the driver for your IDE controller is not loaded or your HD is bad.

If you get no fixed disks present, I would tear it apart and pull out the HD. Then check the connection to make sure it is secure. Even laptops have that issue sometimes.

I dont know what bios that thing uses, but you could also go there and see if the bios autodetects your HD again. If it doesn't then you know where the problem is.