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Operating System not found - hard drive crash?
I am working on a system that will not boot -it powers up and and all the IDE drives (hard drive on one channel, cd and burner on other) show up in BIOS -- when it goes to load the OS it says "operating system not found". I tried to boot from the BartPE emergency boot disk, it starts to boot laods the Bart splash screen and then just hangs--you can move the mouse and all, but it just sits there with the BartPE boot screen and does nothing. HELP! Any ideas? Here is the system I am working with:
Xi® MTower™ 2P64
Based on the newest and most revolutionary, 64 bit AMD Opteron™ processor, sporting 16x16 HyperTransport™ interface with 1MB (1024KB) multi-way associative L2 Cache & independent integrated DDR RAM Controller. The motherboard, based on the AMD 8111/8151™ chipset, supporting 2 processors and AGP-PRO 8x graphic interface. The HyperTransport interface allows FSB data transfer much faster than previous BUS technologies (>5.8GB/sec.). Expandable to 8GB(16GB Optional) of 400MHz DDR-SDRAM Registered Interleave, the Xi® MTower™ 2P64 offers the highest level of computing power available today in a standard 2 processor workstation. On board 1394 Firewire, 1GBit (10/100/1000) Ethernet network interfaces, and a wide choice of powerful video boards like the NVIDIA® Quadro™ FX, make this unit the ideal choice for the most demanding CAD, CAE, CAM, GIS, Video Editing and engineering computational tasks. Fully tested and supported for x86 32-Bit LINUX® & Windows® Operating Systems, the Xi MTower 2P64 will assure a growing longevity path to new 64-Bit OS and application software, for years to come.
Xi® MTower™ 2P64
Based on the newest and most revolutionary, 64 bit AMD Opteron™ processor, sporting 16x16 HyperTransport™ interface with 1MB (1024KB) multi-way associative L2 Cache & independent integrated DDR RAM Controller. The motherboard, based on the AMD 8111/8151™ chipset, supporting 2 processors and AGP-PRO 8x graphic interface. The HyperTransport interface allows FSB data transfer much faster than previous BUS technologies (>5.8GB/sec.). Expandable to 8GB(16GB Optional) of 400MHz DDR-SDRAM Registered Interleave, the Xi® MTower™ 2P64 offers the highest level of computing power available today in a standard 2 processor workstation. On board 1394 Firewire, 1GBit (10/100/1000) Ethernet network interfaces, and a wide choice of powerful video boards like the NVIDIA® Quadro™ FX, make this unit the ideal choice for the most demanding CAD, CAE, CAM, GIS, Video Editing and engineering computational tasks. Fully tested and supported for x86 32-Bit LINUX® & Windows® Operating Systems, the Xi MTower 2P64 will assure a growing longevity path to new 64-Bit OS and application software, for years to come.
ASKER
OK I booted from the XP pro disk -- I checked the recovery console option - it says it is examining disk --it is a 200gb disk, but its been examing the disk for about 45 minutes--there is no progress bar or anything to determine if it is actually examing, or if its just hung. As I said I launched the BartPE rescue cd and it has never failed me yet, but these were always on systems where the drive was still accessible--I wondered if it wasnt loading because the drive is hosed. I mean if there is nothing there to rescue maybe it just doesnt load.
ASKER
oops I should mention I tried the BartPE disk first , then went on to try the XP pro as a boot disk--either way it loooks like I am getting nothing--what about trying an older drive with win95 on it --I have one sitting around. If that booted would tell us that that other drive is just bad?
ASKER
I booted from an old windows 95 drive and it booted, so I am assuming the drive is shot. is there any way to know for sure if it IS shot?
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Yep, sounds like the drive might be shot. You didn't give us much history though - is the drive brand new? was there a previous OS loaded and this is a reload? Was it working previously and one day it stopped, giving you the error message?
If the BIOS is recognizing the drive, it must be hooked up correctly, so we can rule that out. Without any other information, I'd go with what DoTheDEW335 suggests - run diagnostics and see if it is a hardware problem.
If the BIOS is recognizing the drive, it must be hooked up correctly, so we can rule that out. Without any other information, I'd go with what DoTheDEW335 suggests - run diagnostics and see if it is a hardware problem.
Drive booting from a bootdisk and type fdisk /mbr ,this might help your cause,
reformat the drive afterwards for best possible results.
This might do the trick,
/B
reformat the drive afterwards for best possible results.
This might do the trick,
/B
ASKER
OK I am going to try the drive diagnostic and see how that goes. Sorry so long to get back--weekend came and I have been in bed with what they call "walking pneumonia". UgggH!~
sounds yucky, hope your doin better. The diagnostics usually give you a code also to use for RMA processing. (depending on the diagnostic software)
ASKER
Awesome help DEW355-western digital diagnostic said the "Drive 0 reports SMART error--contact Tech Support." Also said "Warning! One or more current or worst case attirbutes are below threshold." Almost all the attributes registered with the worst rating, so I am assuming the drive is hosed.
ASKER
oops I meant DEW335 sorry--it must be all the cough medicine i been chugging!
LOL, DEW is my initials. the #'s dont' mean much anyway :) Glad to hear the diagnostic picked it up. western digial has an advance replacement where u give them a credit card and they send one 2nd day to you, then just return the old one in the same box / anti-static bag and have it sent back. I have done it many times, you get the drive very fast and have 30 days i think to return the old/bad one. Thanks for the accept!
You should goto the recovery console and see if you can even access the drive or if the partition exists
or try the xp recovery console FIXBOOT if u can get to the C: and there are things there.