blue screen "Op Sys Not Found"

Trying to reassemble a PC taken apart by a friend's kid ... I think I got all the puzzle pieces in the right places with the right connectors, but something is wrong. It boots to a blue screen with the message "Operation System Not Found". I can get to Setup and tried resetting to defaults, but no difference. I wish I understood more ... my knowledge is very limited, but unfortunately I won't quit, I'll just keep trying and go crazy trying. Help, please?

 

When you see that message Operation System Not Found it mean your computer don't see your harddisk go to the bios and check if the harddisk is
there and check your jumper on your back of your harddisk set it to master.

 

Also if the pc has cd and hard drive make sure you have connected the correct cable to each. The hard drive has a flat cable with 80 thin ribs, connected to and end of cable connector. The cd uses a similar cable but with 40 thicker ribs. Both cables should be plugged in so that the stripe on one side is next to the power cable. Each should also have a power connector, yellow to outside of case.

The above applies if the pc uses what is called IDE connections. The other sort you can't get wrong use round cables and is called SATA.

Post again if you need more help.

Studio T

 

Had a bad hard drive on a computer that did that. Also had an IDE cable with two connectors and hard drive would only work when connected to the end one. Check disk through BIOS as mentioned, you should be able to run a test on the disk drive there. Recheck, seat connectors. You should be able to feel disk spinning inside when hard drive is powered up, if not it is bad, or not receiving adequate power. Possibly no OS on the drive, but imagine you have already tried to load one. Jumper not set properly? When in doubt, set to master position. Hope you get it up and running, you know you can do it.:major

djb

 

Progress! Now I can get to the setup screen or the one that asks me to select Safe Mode or Start Windows Normally. None of the choices seem to help, though. I seem to be circling around. (It may be that the kid switched the hard drives out with his machine or something. I'm not sure it's the original one that ever worked with this machine.)

I see in Setup a 3.something Bios version is mentioned, but I can see a screen when it's booting that says it has a Phoenix 4.0 Bios. There is another info screen that flashes by so quickly just before it tries to load Windows XP that I can't read it.

Next steps? I'm feeling positive now!

RAM

Thanks, Clark Kent. I don't know how to change the BIOS although I see it in the Setup. I did make the jumper right to master, and now it sees the hard disk and doesn't say the OS Not Found message anymore.

Thanks, Studio T. I now have the correct cable to the hard drive with the ends in place correctly. (I just left the CD drives off for now, but I see the difference in the ribs you mentioned.) The power cables are in place correctly, too.

Thanks, Bugballou. I see what you mean about the cables that have a Master and Slave connector, and I have the end one into the hard drive now, not the middle one.

Not sure what connectors to reseat, unless that means the cables are connected solidly, which I did check. I can hear the disk spinning.

 

Yes progress indeed.

Reseat does mean make sure things are firmly pressed home in their sockets.

If you can get to the boot options screen (safe mode etc) you have almost certainly done all the hardware things correctly. Further you don't need to fiddle with the bios (also called setup by some, confussing aint it).

At the boot options screen (go here by repeteadly tapping F8 as the pc boots, don't wait for it)
first try last known good configuration.
If this does not work look for an option to turn OFF which says something like restart windows on errror and deselect this.
The next time you restart normally, windows boot will stop and display an error message. Post the details.

Do you have the windows cd and is is a microsoft cd or labelled recovery?


Studio T