BleepingComputer.com: Error Loading Operating System

!!!!!THANK GOD!!!!!

I just had this same problem and was reading this forum to try and find an answer (though sadly i did not). Instead i decided to boot from my original windows install disk and run the recovery console (press R). at this screen type 'FIXBOOT', it will prompt you for a confirmation so just say yes (type 'y'). It will write over your previous boot files BUT NOT YOUR PERSONAL DATA!!!!! after this runs and says that it has completed successfully, type 'exit' and the console should quit and your computer is back.

edit: caution, i think this is only a temporary fix (meaning you'll have to go through the same procedure every time you boot your computer) so i would recommend backing up all of your files onto an external hd and then reformatting your computer (by the way i have the same computer, Dell Inspiron 5100, so this fix will probably work the same for you as well).

This post has been edited by SearingFrost: 12 September 2007 - 07:03 PM

"fixboot" shouldn't be a temporary fix. If it is, then there's something that modifies it each time you boot up (and that's likely to be the cause of all your problems). IMO this is malware - regardless of whether it's done by a virus or it's just a program that you use.

Another useful command is "fixmbr" - there's plenty of other commands to try, but these are the most successful when trying to repair Windows from the Recovery Console.

Stupid Dell computers! Last night when I was using my Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop, it said something about updates being almost complete but it needed to restart. So I hit restart and left it. This morning when I went to use it I just got a black screen with "error loading operating system". I tried running the diagnostics test and it got through a bunch of them successfully then said I needed to insert one of the Windows set up CD's (which I don't think I got with my computer). It was something to do with the Dell diagnostics partition. Now I'm not sure what to do. The computer is just over three years old. About a year ago I had some sort of mechanical failure in the hard drive and had to replace it (and spend a crapload of money to try to get my files off the old hard drive). I am ready to throw my computer out the window, and will never buy or encourage anyone else to buy a Dell computer again.

SearingFrost, on Sep 12 2007, 06:41 PM, said:

I am posting my reply to this today, a year and a half after yours, to say THANKS.
I had the dreaded 'error loading operating system' and a black screen on my Windows XP HP Pentium machine after 2 years of satisfactory use. I use it incessantly and thought I had lost all my machine data.
Used my laptop, searched google and found this forum topic.
Your post, pointed me to using Windows XP original disk to repair as you described.
It worked and I am so grateful.
I will back up all my data just in case but how was the problem caused?
Depending on what you read on other forums, they point to an incompatibility between bios and hard disk.
It certainly wasn't that. My machine has been running happily for 2 years.
I have a suspicion malware may have done something.
The repair confirmed that I have NTFS installed which was correct and alsoo said it could not find the boot and then repaired it after I said Y to fix.
Thanks to this forum and yourself for overcoming this problem.
One final note is that the repair was only needed once and I have rebooted several times since

SearingFrost, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU.

The "fixboot" solution worked perfectly in a total of about 5 minutes.

I have just spent half the day dealing with DELL being transferred from one person to the other only to then find out that the extended warranty I paid $300+ for 6 months ago, does not cover software issues. They wanted another $320 to help me with this error message. I tried your solution and am now up and running perfectly.

Thanks again!

To anyone considering paying DELL their outrageous support prices: try some peer support solutions first. You might save yourself a ton of money and grief!

simple easy fix. cold boot from windows xp cd. choose repair console, log into the hard drive/os, then type fixboot. type exit. remove disc and restart, should work. caused from a corrupted boot sys file.

Regards

I have something even easier to try. I moved my computer today (well yesterday) and when I tried to start it up I got a "nvram" error. After searching online and trying stuff I found that simply unhooking my cd-rom solved that problem. However I then got the "error loading os" message. After a few hours I was about to give up and reformat but I didn't want to lose my data so I switched my second drive to the main slot and was going to format that instead. Much to my surprise Windows booted up. That's when I realized my drives had somehow swapped places in cmos. Windows couldn't start because the drive it was trying to read didn't have windows on it, lol. Everything seems to be working just fine.