Operating System not Found [Vista]

Hello all,
I need some help. My computer froze the other day and booted to an 'Operating System not Found' message. It is a Sony Vaio that runs Windows Vista OS. I've booted to a recovery disk, only to find out that the computer isn't accessing the HDD at all. Startup Repair has no results, other than the fact that it can't access the Hard Drive. I can't restore to a previous backup point because it can't access the drive the point is located on. Command Prompt only lets me run commands from X:, and inspect my CD drive, so no chkdsk or fixboot commands will even pertain to the unreadable drive. It does say that the drive in question is write protected. BIOS shows that my 320 GB drive is recognized, is set to primary boot device, and I've tried default factory settings to no avail.

I would only assume that the hard drive itself is corrupted, or bad. Yet it runs fine and I hear no clicking or odd noises emanating from the drive itself.

If you could offer any advice, I'd greatly appreciate it.

 

Is the 320gb drive the only HD in the computer? And you say it is seen in BIOS?

If you have any USB devices try booting with them disconnected.

If no USB connected or no change then from the X:\ prompt type:
diskpart
list volume

What does it report?

 

The only USB device attached is a wireless mouse. I'm disconnecting and trying everything over, just in case. I tried diskpart and it only lists the cd drive D: with the disk in it.
I've tried rebooting all ways without a disk in as well, just to note.

 

It is either a bad HD or a corrupt HD. If BIOS can read the drive size correctly then it might be worth downloading an Linux based disc to see if it can read any partitions on the drive.

Partition Wizard has a bootable CD available for download as an ISO file. The bootable CD is last one on the download page. You would have to burn it to CD using something like imgburn's "Write Image File to Disc" option.

Then boot from the CD and see if it can recognize the drive. If it sees the drive it should give some information on whether it sees partitions or if it sees the drive as "bad". If it at least sees the drive then partition recovery might be an option but it is unusual to lose all partitions on a drive at one time.

***
Parted Magic would be another Linux ISO option that includes Gparted and Testdisk to examine HD for partition information.

If no programs can recognize the HD then there is not much you can do. Or maybe you would want to try a HD diagnostic but I believe only Seagate and Western Digital have utilities that actually try to fix errors. Other brands don't seem to have that utility.

EDIT: In Diskpart if you use the list disk command does it show the HD?

 

I tried to boot to that bootable disk and it is going straight to the 'Operating System not Found' screen. I've tried Ubuntu but it continuously asks me for a username/password in which I put ubuntu/(nopassword), it recognizes that, closes login screen (as if it would accept the combo), and then reloads the login screen. In Diskpart when I do the list disk command it shows the HD as DISK 0 and the status is UNREADABLE. It also shows all of my space on that hard drive is available, when it is not.

Does this mean I've lost everything already?
and also, does this mean I can't reinstall windows on this hard drive?

 

Hello sunglow,
It is a virus, Your system may have infected with malware. You also have a pagefile virus adjusting memory on your computer. Did you try getting into safe mode by pressing F8 while booting? If that does not work you will probably have to reinstall your operating system. One is that the System Bios is not detecting the hard driver, or the Master Boot Record (MBR) is currupted, or finally to say honesly the Hard Disk has gone west!Check in the Bios, on main menu, under Primry Master if the HDD is detected or it looks 'None' there, if it's the case either your Bios has not detected the HDD or the HDD is failed.If you can see the HDD under Primary Master (make sure your seeing not the CD/DVD Drive), go for MBR repair.

Insert a cd-r with the bootable free program"Super Grub Disk" burned onto it. It gives the option to boot into Windows manually. My desktop came up normal. I turned the laptop off and it booted up normal by itself. Why it happened in the first place I don't know. But at least I'm running normal again.

Regards,
Ronnie

 

@RonnieJaysmith: You appear to have posted covering almost every possible hard drive problem. Please target your advice to the situation.

@Sunglow: It does unfortunately sound as though your hard drive has died.

I know it is a bit late to be saying this, but this is why it is a good idea to purchase an external hard drive to back up personal documents.

 

Because both BIOS and diskpart see the HD, I would want one other partition software to try to read the drive before writing it off as unrecoverable. If partition wizard or testdisk say they can't find any partitions then I would try the HD manufacturer's diagnostic utility to do a low level format on the HD (erasing all data) and see if I could then format it to NTFS file system for a new installation of the OS.

I find Ubuntu a very picky OS in terms of booting off different hardware. I'd try a different version of Linux. I find this older version of parted magic boots on most machines fairly reliably if you want to try a different CD.

I can't seem to find a definitive answer on Vaio's key for a one time boot sequence but I would try Esc key during the Vaio splash screen, with the PartitionWizard CD in the tray, to see if you get the option to select CDROM as boot device to force boot from the CD.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QFCeasjufo

 

I appreciate this help. I will try this fix and hopefully something will give.

@Collins : I'm beating myself up for not preparing for this right now.

 

Parted Magic boots up fine, where do I go from here though?

 

Try the Partition Editor icon on the desktop and it will run the gparted partition editing program. See if it finds the HD (it will say /dev/sda up in the top right corner). Then if it does find the HD, does it show as having no partitions in the graph section ( partitions would be labeled sda1, sda2 etc.)?

 

Wait, I guess it didn't load up correctly. I'm getting sent to a dos-like screen with these options:

1. Default settings (Runs from RAM)
+Language
2. Live with default Settings
+Language
3. Live with low RAM settings
4. Alternate graphical server
5. Local Boot
6. Reboot

Extras Menu
Failsafe Menu
RAID Menu

 

You should choose default load (Runs from RAM) and hit enter.

If that doesn't work then we can try the Extras menu. I believe there is testdisk listed there. (I'll boot from that disc and see if it is an option.)

 

I tried that, it said I was missing a .SYS file (I'll get back there and post the name in a second) and then sent me to a prompt screen where I could only input ' ls, cat, and more ' commands.
I ran the hardware detection test, and it recognizes my drive (although it says 300 out of the 320 gb is free space), it also recognizes that the Master Boot Record has an error 0x00FFFFF (or something along those lines, I'll correct later)

Does this mean it could all be a MBR problem?

 

It could be a MBR problem but I think the partition table could be damaged as well. Usually a bad MBR doesn't make the whole disk unreadable in Diskpart.

Try the FailSafe menu and low VGA option. If that doesn't work, also in FailSafe, choose the Console option. When you get to the command prompt type:
testdisk and hit <enter>

From within testdisk:
Create is highlighted so hit <enter>
Choose your HD with the arrow keys and hit <enter> to Proceed
Intel is highlighted so <enter>
Analyse <enter>
Quick Search
Does it find any partitions again listed with names such as sda1,sda2 etc.?

 

No harddisk found.

I guess this means I'm screwed.
One more question, though. Do you think I can salvage the data using an enclosure, or is the hard disk just trash now?

Thanks again for all your help, man

 

I got the desktop up on PartedMagic. I checked the disk health and there IS a disk listed as a /dev/sda unknown model
basic health check: unknown

Does that mean it's recognizing the drive?

 

I did the partition editor. It scanned and found no disks. Although in the hardware diagnostics, it shows my brand hard drive. It has been saying the drive was write protected since this whole problem started.
Does this mean that the drive itself is trash? Or is the information still on there at all?

 

Try, clicking the icon in the task tray at the bottom of the screen that looks like a black monitor/tv screen, then typing testdisk at the prompt.

Can you then follow the directions for testdisk in my previous post?

 

I ran the testdisk and after hitting create it only showed the D:, which is my cd drive. It's not recognizing the C:

 

It looks like I missed a couple of your posts last night. I'm really not sure what is going on. It sounds like corruption more than a bad disk but if no software will see it, I don't know how you can do much with it. Technically, all the data should be there but if the disk isn't recognized there is no way to retrieve it. I don't think an enclosure will be helpful since it just puts an extra interface between the computer and the HD.

I'm disappointed testdisk can't see the HD. It is strange that the Disk Health could see the disk and testdisk couldn't.

At this point I can only suggest a few trial and error things as last ditch efforts.

1) Using your Windows Recovery Disc go to diskpart and try to remove the read-only attribute. (I don't know if this will do anything useful but I guess it can't hurt. A write-protected disk doesn't explain why no program can see it.)
diskpart
select disk 0
attributes disk clear readonly

Doing a clean command in diskpart will erase the MBR and the partition table completely. It may make the drive useable again by allowing you to create and format a new partition but from a quick test on a working flash drive it makes all data permanently unretrievable. That would be my choice when you decide you no longer have any chance at data retieval.

I'll see if I can come up with anything else. I guess you never got partition Wizard to boot?

 

I booted with Parted Magic, the only version of Partition Wizard I found is an executable file, not an image file to burn a boot disk.

I'll try that last resort when I'm on my last leg, only because I'm hoping to not have to buy a new hdd.

 

Last link on this page for PW bootable CD http://www.partitionwizard.com/download.html

If you have a spare CD I'd give it a go.

If it sees the drive it should tell you something about its status. The partition recovery feature is also pretty good.

If the problem is corruption on the drive it has to be a very critical piece of information at the very beginning of the drive. I'll look around a bit more later tonight to see if I can find anything of value.

Is this a desktop or laptop?

 

Sorry for taking so long to get back with you, I was playing a concert and was stuck there all day/night. It's a Sony Vaio Laptop.
I'll burn this to a disk and try it in the morning, I appreciate the link (again). I totally overlooked this the first time.

 

No problem. If it weren't showing in BIOS and hadn't happened so suddenly I would say bad HD and let it go. But I'm curious if PW will see it. There don't seem to be many options with the unreadable error.

I don't think you will get out of this without some problems. Because it is a laptop with a recovery partition, I would generally avoid rewriting the MBR because you will lose the keystroke to enter the recovery partition to try a factory restore(that info is stored in the customized Vaio MBR). But at this point I think that is the least of your problems. I don't know if rewriting the MBR will be possible since neither Gparted or testdisk could work with the drive. PW has that function and may be necessary if available. Let me know if PW can work with the disk.

Going back to using the Windows RE disc, maybe trying a bootrec /fixmbr command would also be an option but I am also unsure it will complete if the disc is unreadable.

Lastly, if your personal files are very important I found PowerDataRecovery could read my "cleaned" flash drive when no other program could read it. It found many files. The free version of that only works from within Windows so that would mean attaching the HD to a working computer either by USB enclosure or cable, or connecting internally (if both computer and laptop use SATA drives that would be fairly easy). Then running PowerdataRecovery and seeing what it came up with and copying the files to a different HD or USB device. The latest free version is limited to 1gb of data recovery but older versions are unlimited recovery. If the most recent version finds some files we could probably find an older version to get the rest of your files.

 

I got Partition Wizard to boot and I did the Recovery Wizard. It found all of my Lost/deleted partitions and my boot partitions, now it is asking me to select the partitions I need from the following list. I CAN explore my files in the largest partition (209.7 GB of 287.59 GB).

Is this good news of some sort?
I don't want to do anything that may cause damage at this point, so I'll wait on your word.

 

Yes, that is the best news possible.

How many partitions does it find? Are they labeled?

Looking at the starting and ending LBA numbers do any seem to overlap? Say the first one starts at 63 and goes to 25000 then the second one should start at >25001 and end at a even larger number like 55000. Then the third should start at >55001 and end at a larger number. (If you have never deleted/created partitions then there should just be two or three in the list and none should overlap.)

 

There are seven, but I believe the first is the full drive.

The first is unlabeled with the LBA starting at 0 to the ending LBA of 625142447, it's used size if the full 298 out of 298 GB, and it's status is 'overlapped'.
The second is labeled as Recovery and it 10.5 GB with 9.66 GB used, it's status is Lost/Deleted, the LBA is 2048 to 22015998
The third is a boot drive of only 3.01 mb starting LBA at 6749280 to 6755452
the fourth is also a small boot drive with the same amount (both of these have the status of overlapped) LBA at 6755472 to 6761644
The fifth is unlabeled, and is the used 209 GB out of 287 GB, it's status is Lost/Deleted. LBA from 22016000 to 625140398
The sixth and seventh are overlapped Boot partitions
the sixth LBA from 283924368 to 283930540
the seventh from 351061104 to 351067276

 

No wonder you are having problems.

None of those match up to a proper small boot partition which, looking at your numbers, should have been around start LBA 63 to end LBA ~2047, so we will have to fix the boot files later.

Go ahead and check the boxes for:

The second partition (Recovery) with start LBA 2048 and end LBA 22,015,998
The fifth partition with LBA 22,016,000 and end LBA 625,140,398

Hit Finish button
In main window hit Apply button. It should give you some confirmation message.

If you now still in main window double click each of those drives do you see files? Or right-click them and select Explore if double-click doesn't work. I don't care what the files are just that the large partition has a Windows folder and a Users to verify that windows is still there.

 

It says 'At least one of the existing partition will be deleted. Are you sure that you want to continue?'

Yes or No?

 

Those are the only two you care about. If any of the other five are currently labeled as existing then you want to say yes.

Then you can double click the drives in the main window to verify the files are listed before hitting apply.

 

I applied all of the changes. The disk on the main screen does not allow any options for modifying. The file system says Bad Disk. Any other options from here?

 

It applied the changes and then said bad disk? So it isn't showing any partitions in the main window?

Run the partition recovery again, using the Full Disk and Quick scan options. See if it shows the two partitions you just selected as existing.

 

It has said Bad Disk from the get go. I did the full disk before. On quick scan it comes up with the two I just recovered (status still at Lost/Deleted).

 

Tick them both and Finish and then Apply. It probably won't do anything.

I don't know what to tell you. If these changes were actually being applied then maybe we could do something with the HD. PW obviously sees references to the files.

I'll look around and see if I can learn anything about the very beginning of a HD. I don't think MBR is really at the very beginning of the HD. I'm not sure about boot sector.

 

When I scan for the hdd and pick from the partitions I can double click and search the partitions. I see that ALL of my files are intact in the drive. It seems odd that the information has been untouched but the whole disk is considered 'bad'

 

That is why I keep thinking it is an error at the very beginning of the drive. Go ahead and hit the rebuild MBR button and hit Apply. It won't do any harm.

Then maybe see if the HD is still unreadable in the Windows repair disc or testdisk.

I'll post something tomorrow about any other last ditch effort but I didn't find anything previously regarding fixing an unreadable disc especially one that isn't really unreadable.

 

I can't Rebuild the MBR, it won't really allow me to do anything at all to the drive itself. All options are grayed out when I right click the Disk, and the partition.
Hope to hear back from you tomorrow. I'll try to make the disk readable with my recovery cd, at least.

Thanks again for all your help!

 

I haven't given up on this but have not had luck trying to write to the very beginning of a drive without destroying the partition table. (Something we don't want.)

It looks like I won't get back to it this weekend. I have a couple hours tomorrow morning and will test a few more things. If you get a chance boot from Parted Magic one more time and verify that testdisk doesn't even list the HD after hitting Create. I want to know if that was a fluke or a permanent situation.

 

I appreciate this, really. I ran the testdisk, hit create but it still only recognized the D: that contained the PartedMagic boot. Do you think the enclosure + Data recovery boot on another computer would be the only way out of this mess or is that even still an option?

 

I'm getting back to this tonight. I did look at it this morning and narrowed things down a bit but am still having problems backing up the partition table to a file, so I will have to experiment a bit more.

I'm going on the premise that something got damaged in the MBR or bootsector of the drive which is keeping various programs from reading the drive. That partition Wizard could find the old partitions and get a file listing out of them seems to indicate they are viable but something has to be fixed at the very beginning of the drive without damaging the partition table which is also at the beginning of the drive.

Give me one more day to test the options. One thought is that I have been testing mostly DOS programs which would be no problem with an IDE drive but yours may be SATA. Do you happen to know if your HD is SATA? If you don't know post the model number of laptop so I can check and see if that changes the options.

 

It's a Sony Vaio VGN FW351J. I believe it is a SATA drive, which sounds to me like bad news?

 

Ok,I found a program that should work to back up your partition table and MBR. That would allow us to experiment with the current MBR and partition table without worry. The main problem I have with testing is that I can't duplicate the "bad" disk error. So no guarantees on whether or not we will be able to rebuild the partition table but we will have a backup that should work unless the disc is completely unwritable.

You will need a USB flash/thumb drive that can be completely erased. Any size will do. If you don't have one you can buy the cheapest/smallest one available. Dollar stores might have little 512mb ones that nobody wants.

You will need to download and install the HP USB format tool.
You will need to download Win98boot.zip and unzip the archive.
You will need to download MBRtool and install it.

Then with the USB flash drive connected you will run HP Format tool as Administrator. So if Vista/Win7 you will have to right-click the Format tool icon and choose Run as Administrator.

Then in the HP window, under device:, make sure it is showing your USB drive.
Skip down to Format options: and check the box for Quick Format and the Box for Create a DOS Startup disk. In the Browse to files box locate your unzipped Win98boot folder.
Click Start.

When it is done you need to find the "Bootable diskette or CD builder" icon which mbrtool added to your Start>All Programs menu (if it is not on the desktop) and run it.
You want to tick the third option to extract the files to the root of the drive and select the drive letter for your USB flash drive. Click the Go button and when finished close the window.

Now try and boot the laptop from the USB flash drive. You may have to hit ESC during the Vaio screen to get a boot menu to select USB as the boot device.

You should boot to a C:\ prompt.
Type mbrtool and hit <enter>
You get a screen with 6 options.
Type 2 and hit enter.
You should see a confirmation message about two files being written, so hit any key to get back to the 6 options.
Type 3 and hit enter.
You should see a confirmation message about two files being written, so hit any key to get back to the 6 options.
Hit Esc to quit. Shut down.
Remove the USB put it back in your working computer and open Explorer and Browse to your USB drive.
Copy all MBR_Back and Track0 files to your desktop. (You should have two MBR and two Track0 files- two with .128 and two with .129 extensions.)
These copies on the desktop are for safe keeping in case something happens to the ones on the USB drive.

If you get through that then we can try to fix the problem with accessing your files. Which should be a combination of deleting the partition table and/or the MBR and/or track0 on the HD and then letting Partition Wizard rebuild the partition table. I think deleting the current partition table (once it is backed up) should remove the "bad disk" message and allow a new partition table to be built. If it doesn't then we will rebuild the MBR as well.

It is a bit complicated but worth having the backups otherwise one problem and the information is gone, probably for good. Please let me know if you have any problems.

No matter what happens with these and the future steps dealing with the MBR and partition table we will not be dealing with the parts of the HD that actually contain your files. So using a USB enclosure or cable and recovery software will still be an option for trying to copy files to another HD.

 

I have more or less the same issue with a relatively new Sony VAIO VPC-SE notebook (Windows 7 Home Premium). Message "Operating System not found" appears at boot time. Unfortunately I have not created recovery media (too bad).

Partition Wizard shows "bad disk" for my hard drive, but recognizes all partitions on it (including the Sony recovery partition), and is even able to display their contents/directories/files.

First I simply tried to recreate those partitions through Partition Wizard, but upon restart, the disk continues to be shown as "bad disk", so it had no real effect.

Then I followed your latest instructions, using MBR Tool, backed up MBR and Track 0 to files. Then I used MBR Tool to blank out the MBR. Restarted with Partition Wizard, but still it shows "bad disk". Then I used MBR Tool to blank out the Partition Table, and again restarted with Partition Wizard, but still it tells me "bad disk".

Now I'm not sure what I could try to solve this. Do you have further advise?
My main intent is to do reenable the system, or do at least a system recovery from the recovery partition......fortunately I have backups for my personal files.

Thanks. Michael

 

Would probable be better if you had started your own thread on this, rather than tack onto somebody elses.
With your own new thread, more people would see it and respond.
And welcome to Major Geeks.

 

I forgot to mention in my last append that there seem to be two Sony created partitions (one labeled Recovery, the other System or so). On the second partition, Partition Wizard shows an MBR file which could be key to my problem, if I could only restore that somehow. Since MBRTool and DiskPart don't seem to recognize my partitions (only Partition Wizard recognizes them), I don't know how to access that file.

And I have the same issue as the original user, data on the first portion of the disk is shown as empty by Partition Wizard (first partition recognized starts at 2048).

 

Hi,

It is strange that you are having the same problem, I have never seen it before this thread.

I'm in and out today but I will read this thread more carefully later. You tried diskpart and it didn't read your partitions. PW did read your partitions. Did you try Testdisk or Gparted?

I have never used MBRTool before. I experimented with it for this thread. I'll have to look at it again. You made backups of track 0 and the MBR. You erased the MBR and the partition table. So now Partition Wizard shows no partitions--just bad disk?

 

Thanks for replying so quickly. Even after manipulating MBR and partition table with MBRTool (I believe it was called "wiping" or so), Partition Wizard shows all my partitions as entries under the "bad disk", allows me to recover them, processes all the recovery operations, but after finishing these partition recovery ops (reporting success), it effectively has not recovered them.....so to me it appears these MBRTool operations had no effect on Partition Wizard, so far.

I'm not completely surprised by that, because the disk seems to be still corrupted between LBA 0 and 2048.

I had tried Testdisk before from a recovery CD, but it did not load correctly, so I quickly gave up with it.

I'm no expert in DiskPart either, but I tried it once, and it recognized the disk in response to a "list disk" and "select disk", but it did not list partitions in response to "list partitions".

I have also connected an external USB disk in addition to try copying partitions from the internal "bad disk" to the USB disk, but it looks like Partition Wizard doesn't recognize the USB disk.

 

You have definitely tried just about everything. I had MBRTool on a different PC that I put into storage. I will pull it back out and experiment. You haven't actually wiped track 0 yet. I believe that was my intention of trying MBRTool. Since wiping/rebuilding the MBR and the partition table doesn't seem to be making a difference, I think wiping track 0 was the last thing I was going to suggest trying.

I'll take a HD and backup track 0, erase track 0 and see how partition wizard responds. (I may have tested this before but can't remember.) If it can search the HD and rebuild partitions then that is what I would recommend but I'll test it first. You'll definitely want to have a copy of the current track 0 if you blank yours. I won't get to it for a few hours but I want to have an idea of how things work as far as what can be recovered from a disk after track 0 has been erased.

 

Thanks again for helping. I had mixed up "wiping" with "blanking" in my last append. I had so far only "blanked" MBR and partition table. I have now done a "wiping" in addition. I'm currently in the process of restarting Partition Wizard to see what happened to the partitions. Haven't played with Track 0 operations yet