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operating system not found

Experts,

a windows 8 user gets this error "operating system not found" from time to time.
when he leaves the laptop idle for some time but USB connected to his blackberry, optical mouse and 2 external HDs, he returns to operating system not found and has to shut down the laptop

could it be one of the usb attached devices causing this? and how to determine which one?

thank you for your help
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helpfinder
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to find problematic one you can try just unplug one by one - I understand it could be time consuming (I do no expect mouse is the problematic one)

btw it happens, I mean error appears, when OS is running, or only when booting (or restoring from sleep/hibernation)?
Check BIOS and devices boot order if internal HDD is on 1st place
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ASKER

thanks helpfinder, the user claims this happens when laptop is running not during boot up.
i will ask him to try and leave on devices connected one by one
when it is running? strange. Is it like BSOD (blue screen)? If yes what is the error code?
are you able to find something in win logs?
maybe HDD test would be good point, use some HDD resting tool (e.g. from HDD maufacturer) and test disk for errors
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ASKER

he says no blue screen, just a black screen with "operating system not found" which forces him to power it down. then when the pc is back up, "scanning and repairing" starts which takes long time to finish
is he able to see just right the black screen appears, or it is everytime when he comes to the machine?
maybe something will be in the win logs what could point you what´s bad, and that HDD test tool will tell you if the HDD is healthy or not
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he suspects it happens when he leaves his blackberry connected to it, so i asked him to experiment tonight by leaving it ON and BB connected and take a picture of the error page in the morning.

CHKDSK HDD test tool is enough?
you could try also checkdisk, but it does not test disk health. I mean something like:
http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/seatools/ (download section)
Might be a failing bios battery on mobo...try different bios battery.



Ded9
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ASKER

thanks ded9, how do i determine that it is in fact the bios battery that's causing this?
i have no access to the logs for the time being
Make some changes in the bios first . Then wait for the error message(operating system not found) .

 When you get the error check the bios settings.. if its changed then problem might be with the bios battery.


Ded9
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Sounds like when the machine starts up it uses one of the attached devices as the boot device.. simple fix change the boot priority on the machine.
to me it looks like malware
maybe better run a virus scan and these :
http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php                         MBAM
http://majorgeeks.com/RogueKiller_d6983.html                  Roguekiller
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ASKER

the laptop returns that error while it's running so i doubt the boot order is the issue here.
MBAM already installed and did a full scan a week earlier, i'll ask him to rerun.
regarding the bios, i have to wait for him to come back to do this myself.
He has left his bb connected to it and i am still waiting for his reply and will get back to you on this.
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nobus
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thanks Nobus, i will do disk diagnostics and chkdsk when he's back.

he has sent me a picture he took of the error, it is a complete black screen with "_operating system not found" and NOTHING was connected to its usb ports
that looks like a bootup message  to me
is he sure it is NOT rebooting?
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ASKER

he says it happens randomly but only when he leaves it idle for a bit, and when he returns he sees this message and the only option he has is power it down then switch back ON. then the scanning and repairing starts then it starts normally
can it be in sleep mode?  check the settings
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that's what i thought but sleep mode was already set to Never
can it be a prank or virus problem?
http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php                         MBAM
http://majorgeeks.com/RogueKiller_d6983.html                  Roguekiller

you can also run sfc :
http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/3047-sfc-scannow-command-run-windows-8-a.html
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ASKER

ok update:

ran malwarebytes - 1 error cleaned
performed windows update
did microsoft security scan
now every time we open outlook or powerpoint 2010, pc BSOD with error kernal page something like that.

the 2 errors i could see from the dumps attached, are ntoskrnl.exe
and ntkrnlmp.exe

could you please check the minidumps and confirm what is causing these crashes?
thank you
053113-22734-01.zip
053113-65614-01.dmp
053113-16078-01.dmp
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There are no burning software installed and no daemon tools.
I ran the windows 8 built in memory test, rebooted no errors reported. I ran the chkdsk rebooted it took around 10mins repairing then up again.
You're saying logmein but this was installed from day one and just lately started.
It is a bit weird that it shuts down when I open outlook.
I'll reinstall logmein, regarding the mem test and disk dig, do I need to do anything or the built in features are ok?
Thank you
>>>  regarding the mem test and disk dig, do I need to do anything or the built in features are ok?  <<<  sorry , but what do you mean? if you mean the diags are in built, then i suppose they'll do

>>  There are no burning software installed and no daemon tools.  <<  that is strange, since the dmp info points to it

>> You're saying logmein but this was installed from day one and just lately started.  << then a system restore can help also
Try running outlook in no addin mode....if the system does not shutdown then we find the faulty addin or software.

Type this in the run box

outlook /safe

http://blog.technotesdesk.com/disable-add-in-plugins-in-outlook-200320072010/




Ded9
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ASKER

i'll do belarc advisor run to determine what programs are installed.
outlook in safe mode does the same thing, it knocks me out of the remote session and bsod the laptop.
what I meant in built-in, thought you were referring to an external diag tool that I need to download and run rather than the win8 builtin memory test feature.
the last thing I will do before now before wiping it clean, is uninstall office 2010 and logmein, if it still doing what it's doing I will do system restore to the point where I know it was working.
that sounds like a good plan to me
Did u try launching outlook in clean boot mode.

Clean boot process

Start-type - msconfig- click on startup tab- click disable all...then click services tab- put a check on hide all microsoft services ...and then click disable all....click ok and then restart the computer in normal mode.

If everything works fine in clean boot then enable five startup items and services at a time to find the faulty software.




Ded9
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ASKER

ded, this is also a good idea. i'll try that.
i was checking the bugcheck analysis below; i see VCSystemTray.exe process with driver fault but i can't determine which program it belongs to. i see "If the error status is 0xC000000E etc.." but i can't determine the actual status of the current error.


KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR (7a)
The requested page of kernel data could not be read in.  Typically caused by
a bad block in the paging file or disk controller error. Also see
KERNEL_STACK_INPAGE_ERROR.
If the error status is 0xC000000E, 0xC000009C, 0xC000009D or 0xC0000185,
it means the disk subsystem has experienced a failure.
If the error status is 0xC000009A, then it means the request failed because
a filesystem failed to make forward progress.
Arguments:
Arg1: 0000000000000004, lock type that was held (value 1,2,3, or PTE address)
Arg2: 0000000000000000, error status (normally i/o status code)
Arg3: fffffa8004e28650, current process (virtual address for lock type 3, or PTE)
Arg4: 000000001cb1f81f, virtual address that could not be in-paged (or PTE contents if arg1 is a PTE address)

Debugging Details:
------------------


ERROR_CODE: (NTSTATUS) 0 - STATUS_WAIT_0

BUGCHECK_STR:  0x7a_0

CUSTOMER_CRASH_COUNT:  1

DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID:  VISTA_DRIVER_FAULT

PROCESS_NAME:  VCSystemTray.e

CURRENT_IRQL:  0

LAST_CONTROL_TRANSFER:  from fffff802d09840a8 to fffff802d08c9440

STACK_TEXT:  
fffff880`19853808 fffff802`d09840a8 : 00000000`0000007a 00000000`00000004 00000000`00000000 fffffa80`04e28650 : nt!KeBugCheckEx
fffff880`19853810 00000000`00000000 : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : nt! ?? ::FNODOBFM::`string'+0x24cc6


STACK_COMMAND:  kb

FOLLOWUP_IP:
nt! ?? ::FNODOBFM::`string'+24cc6
fffff802`d09840a8 cc              int     3

SYMBOL_STACK_INDEX:  1

SYMBOL_NAME:  nt! ?? ::FNODOBFM::`string'+24cc6

FOLLOWUP_NAME:  MachineOwner

MODULE_NAME: nt

IMAGE_NAME:  ntkrnlmp.exe

DEBUG_FLR_IMAGE_TIMESTAMP:  5165e551

FAILURE_BUCKET_ID:  X64_0x7a_0_nt!_??_::FNODOBFM::_string_+24cc6

BUCKET_ID:  X64_0x7a_0_nt!_??_::FNODOBFM::_string_+24cc6

Followup: MachineOwner
vcsystem tray is a Sony program ; probably VAIO Care

if you google it, you find a few cases of problems from it
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PC isn't crashing anymore. i don't know which of these solutions helped. thank you v much for your help
>>  thank you v much for your help   <<  a C grade is not very much...rather the opposite
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apologies, you're absolutely right .. i meant to put B. how can i change it?
use request attention in your startiing post, an ask a mod to change it, or reeopen the question