Pc says "No operating system found" or "No Hard Drive Found"

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by new4candy, Jul 26, 2005.

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  1. new4candy

    new4candy Private E-2

    My pc is a Hp 533w, 60gb, 256 Ram, Hard drive interface: EIDE (ATA-not SATA) Intel Celeron Processer with 2 GHZ processer speed, BUS speed 400 Mhz.
    I did a diagnostics with the cd that came with the new drive and it shows the old drive is ok. But my computer says (on booting up) that "no operating system is found". So, I tried reinstalling Windows XP and it then says "No Hard Drive found". (which is why in the 1st place I thought my old hard drive was bad) I installed a new hard drive but got the same messages as with the old hard drive. I called HP support 3 times and this is what they have had me do.
    1. Unplugged and replugged all cables and hard drive to insure a good connection. Made sure there were not discs or floppies in the drives. Made drive the "Master" drive.
    2. Went into the BIOS and changed the boot to CD drive to the first.
    3. installed the "Windows XP home Edition utility" - 6 floppy discs - and formated the hard drive. Inserted the 1st of the XP installations discs and it worked for a while then got to where it kept saying this file couldn't be copied, that file couldn't be copied etc. So, had to stop there as it wouldn't do anything else.
    Now when I boot up, I am back to where I started - NO OPERATING SYSTEM FOUND and when I put in the Windows XP recovery disc - NO HARD DRIVE FOUND.
    I cannot go into the Windows XP recovery disc to do any kind of diagnosis or repair work. The pc won't let me.
    I am stumped! I would really appreciate any help I could get. I have looked at past forums and others have had this problem but I haven't found an answer. I even installed a New Hard Drive but with the same error messages! Thanks again for any help!
     
  2. new4candy

    new4candy Private E-2

    Yes, I tried a brand new cable. Thanks
     
  3. AMDxp

    AMDxp N5638J's #2 Fan!

    Absolutely stupid question but is the power connected to the hard drive? (i foolishly left mine off once by accident and you get the same message)
    Please do check the Data cable is in the correct IDE slot on the Mobo as well, the Primary is sometimes coloured Blue or has IDE 0 next to it, also the Master plug is usually the plug at the end of the cable and coloured Black, im sure you have checked all this already.
    The hard drive should have its jumper over the MA mark and the bios settings for a drive should read
    in Standard CMOS or Advanced BIOS settings
    find IDE Config or similar, the setting should be AUTO
    in ADVANCED BIOS settings find the boot priority and set to
    First - Floppy (or 1.44 MB 3.5)
    Second - HDD-0 (or IDE-0)
    Third (if available) - CD ROM (or name of your CD device)

    Also check if 12V line from your PSU is working correctly, it is responsible for Fans, Motors(in CD ROM and HD and Floppy), and other add ons
    if cd rom seems to work ok (draw opens, light comes on, cd spins) it should be ok

    if you are using a DMA66 or higher HD then you need the cable that has more leads on it, it has much thinner wires than the floppy cable which the older DMA33 drives used to use (not a floppy one obviously but same wire thickness)
     
  4. new4candy

    new4candy Private E-2

    Thanks for the reply! Well, I have a dumb question... When you talk about the power connected to the hard drive what or where is that? Are you talking about the plug on the outside? I have double checked every connection that I see and am pretty sure that I have the connections in the right slots. I put the original hard drive back in the pc and ran a diagnosis with the cd that came with the new HD. and it said it was working so I kept the old IDE cable on it. (I had used the new IDE cable with the new HD) I checked the Bios settings too, thanks! I just don't know what else to do!
    Thanks again!
     
  5. AMDxp

    AMDxp N5638J's #2 Fan!

    yeh , sorry i should have made it clearer, its the 4 pin plug with 2 black wires a red wire and a yellow wire on it, the yellow=+12V red=+5V and black is just common ground for the two. I can only imagine that the bios is not looking in the right place for the boot file either partition or drive slot :confused:
    a good tip for knowing which way round the data cable should go (even though it should only go in one way) is the power plugs(4 pin ones) can only go in one way, the red wire on that plug for the HD and CD should be directly facing (be next to) the red lined wire on the data cable. its the opposite for the floppy drive ( red wire facing away from the data cables red wire which should also be the furthest away from the power plug) ie
    1) for Floppy ~ red wire floppy data >|------------- YBBR <red floppy power
    2) for HD CD ~ ----------------|<red data HD CD : red HD CD Power >RBBY
    hope that makes sense
    The only other cause i can think of is a non bootable floppy disk still being left in the drive but you said you checked for that
    There is a bios option that has "Boot to OS/2" somewhere, this should be set to NO you could check that maybe??
     
  6. Rob M.

    Rob M. First Sergeant

    I'm wondering if that hard drive has developed problems with the media surface. You might try re-running the diagnostics to check that.
     
  7. AMDxp

    AMDxp N5638J's #2 Fan!

    This picture from my Maxtor HD Installation utility shows you how it should look when its correctly wired :)
     
    Last edited: Jan 8, 2007
  8. ichieminiflick

    ichieminiflick Private E-2

    maybe your HD is not set on "MASTER" mode. You need to set the pins in your HD. You can find the pin settings on the HD.
     
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