HP DV9281ea Laptop Operating System Not Found

Hello

I have a 2 year old HP Pavillion DV9281ea Laptop which is displaying a black screen with the following text in white font: Operating System Not Found.

For a while the laptop has been periodically turning itself off, which increased in frequency to a couple of times a day.

The laptop can be on for long periods sometimes, so I checked that there was no obstruction to the fan/vents to avoid any potential overheating - the bottom of the laptop got hot, but not so hot it burns, and there is no apparent obstruction (the fan still works).

My next thought was to try a different virus checking package - Norton 360 was the chosen package (old virus cheker was uninstalled first) and part way through the first scan the pc turned off - at this point Norton had identified some 21 items and dealt with them (items the previous virus checker obviously missed).

Since this point it has not been possible to reboot the laptop - i get the start up menu with options to push various 'F' keys, but the system restore option does not load - the only option that does load is F10 (this takes me to the menu where I can system specs, boot order etc). If I don't push any 'F' keys it goes quite for 5 minutes and then displays 'operating system not found'

A bit of research has led me to believe that my hard drive has windows vista held in a partition, but as i cannot seem to access this partition i have purchased the system recovery on DVD - however, when i put in the disc and turn on the computer; although the disc drive spins, nothing happens.

So, I'm not quite sure what the problem is - is the hard drive broken from one too many power failures, what could have caused the laptop to turn itself off, why will the laptop not recognise the system restore on the discs (my desktop computer confirms there is stuff on the discs) - where to go from here?

Any help will be very much appreciated

Colin

If you go into the BIOS, is your hard drive listed? If it's not, then I would guess your drive is dead. If it does, can you boot into the HP diagnostic utility and have it scan your drive? I think it's either the Esc or F2 key.

Esc takes me to the 'startup message' screen; which I think is the BIOS. The screen lists all sorts (mouse, CPU, MemClk, System RAM, Cache per core etc), but I cannot see anything on the list for 'Hard Drive', or the HP spare parts number for my hard drive. It does say 'no TPM or TPM has problem' but I'm not sure if this is stating that there is a issue or not?

If I don't touch any more keys then it goes into the PhoenixBIOS Setup Utility screen; where I have an option to conduct a 'Hard Drive Self Test'. If I choose to run the test it states 'Diagnostics no supported'. If I press enter again it states 'No IDE device' under the 'test status' heading.

There is also an option to run a system memory test on this screen too - I've run this and it completes ok with no problems.

Also in the Phoenix BIOS Setup Utility - system configuration it lists the following for boot options:

Delay (sec) (0)
CD-ROM Boot (Enabled)
Floppy Boot (enabled)
Internal Network Adaptor Boot (disabled)

Then under boot options:

USB Floppy
ATAPI CD/DVD ROM Drive
Notebook Hard Drive
USB Diskette on key
USB Hard Drive
!Network Adaptor

Sorry one other thing to add which may help diagnose the original cause - the battery did not seem to be charging correctly and would sometimes state 'plugged in, not charging' and lo and behold the battery was not sufficient to run the laptop if disconnected from the mains. Very occassionally it would still charge and go up to 100%. Because of this the laptop was always plugged in for the past 4 or 5 months.

It sounds to me like your hard drive might be dead. But it may also be your motherboard since you're having problems with charging, hard drive, dvd drive and running part of the diagnostic. If you (or someone you know) has the right equipment, you could pull out the hard drive and connect it to another pc using a usb adapter and see if the pc recognizes the drive.

Okay, thanks for your help - I'll see if I can give that a try and let you know how I get on.

I am having the EXACT SAME problem with my HP laptop. Have you figured it out yet? I do believe mine is overheating. It seems to at least try to boot up to Windows when it's been off for a while. Otherwise, same thing . . . Operating System Not Found. HELP!!!!!