 Laptop Cannot Find Operating System, Vista Home Premium, 32 bit |
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 Jul 2 2008, 02:23 PM
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New Member  Group: Members Posts: 5 Joined: 2-July 08 Member No.: 220,041  |
Just joined so "hi!", a colleague overseas sent me a a link here and said I might find the help I need. I have a Fujitsu Siemens laptop running Vista Home Premium 32 bit (I think) and it won't boot up correctly. It's got 1gb of RAM, and, so I'm told, a SATA HDD. I was surfing the net, left it running for a few mins whilst I put my daughter to bed, when I came back it was rebooting, and it said 'cannot find operating system' on the screen. A friend with a little knowledge has said the HDD is OK as it will try to repair itself using the repair disc that came with the machine, however it's not repairing properly. I've been through the turorials 148, 147 and 142 in that order, but to no avail. When I get to the 'System Recovery Screen' as seen on Figure 4 in tutorial 148 there is nothing in the box under Operating System. When I try the advanced options, as seen in Figure 9, none of them work- there is no system restore available. I've reset the BIOS to default, not that I recall changing anything. I'm a bit stuck as to what to try next. I'm not an expert by any means but I'm familiar with some of the processes, not all the terminology.The laptop is under warranty but I've been told that it will take 4 weeks to repair. I don't want to wait this long, and to be honest I'm not comfortable with it being away for so long- there's some sensitive commercial data on it, plus a few passwords stored in Firefox for different accounts (not my bank!). I'm even prepared to buy a new HDD if needed, as I don't want to be without it for a length of time. Any help, advice, tips or further tutorials to try would be very welcome. Thanks in advance- Adam |
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Jul 2 2008, 03:34 PM
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 Visually handicapped, hence the avatar :0) Group: Moderator Posts: 13,209 Joined: 2-October 05 From: Southeastern CT, USA Member No.: 35,824 |
If startup repair doesn't recognize a hard drive, then it can't run any of it's repairs on the hard drive (to include chkdsk) - so it's either the hard drive that's dead or a more serious problem with the computer.
I'd suggest running a test on the hard drive to see if it's dead. They're usually free from the manufacturer of the hard drive. In the event that you have a Fujitsu hard drive in your Fujitsu laptop, here's a link to it: http://www.fujitsu.com/us/services/computi.../utilities.html You'll have to download the program and follow their directions for making a bootable DOS disk (and you'll have to use the DOS version of the test). In the event that the hard drive is dead, you'll need another hard drive of the same capacity or bigger, and you'll have to know if it's SATA (2 black connectors) or IDE (40 little gold pins). Then you'll need your Vista DVD and any other DVD's that may have come with the computer. -------------------- - John
**If you need a more detailed explanation, please ask for it. I have the Knack. ** |
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Jul 4 2008, 03:24 AM
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New Member Group: Members Posts: 5 Joined: 2-July 08 Member No.: 220,041 |
Thanks, will give it a try.
Cheers Adam |
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