Is this issue with my guy's laptp fixable?

[lilminx]

He went to turn on his laptop the other day and got the message "operating system not found". I think he said the BIOS screen showed up as well. Is there any way he or I can fix it?

He doesn't want to take it to a computer place, as there are some uh, sensitive files on it.

 

[DigitalDrifter]

Bad scene.. best thing is to remove the HD and try to copy the files needing saved to another one.

<this means, remove the hard drive, serial connect it to another, and see if it can copy files over to the new one.

 

[Anachron]

What that means is the disk volume is unmountable. In plain English, the software on the drive is damaged. The drive itself may or may not be damaged.

Are the files merely sensitive as in "don't want anyone to see them," or data that you really want to recover?

If the former--if you just don't want the geek at the local computer shop who probably whacks his weasel to anime chicks anyway to know you have PORN--go down to the local computer store and buy a disk utility (it should only set you back $29.99 or so). You can then boot to the disc (unless your computer is more than seven or eight years old), do a complete wipe of the hard drive (thereby erasing ALL data) and then attempt to reinstall Windows. This is when you'll find if software on the hard drive just glitched, or if there's a physical malfunction on the hard driver. If the former, you should be back up and running that same day. If the latter, you're looking at a new hard drive.

 

[Weird Harold]

He went to turn on his laptop the other day and got the message "operating system not found". I think he said the BIOS screen showed up as well. Is there any way he or I can fix it?

He doesn't want to take it to a computer place, as there are some uh, sensitive files on it.

The first step is to figure out if it will boot from either the floppy or CD -- preferably from the CD because it probably uses the same drive controller chip.

The most likely cause of the problem is a failure of the hard-drive boot sector -- which can be hardware or data related. The drive might still be readable if you can boot from a floppy or CD so the "sensitive" (or embrassing) files can be removed before it goes to the shop. If the drive isn't readable when booting from a CD or Floppy, it might be readable as a secondary drive in another computer as DigitalDrifter suggests.

I wouldn't hold my breath or place any large wagers on any data from the drive being useable at all without the services of a data recovery specialist, though.

 

[blueyez58]

might not be broken...

Laptops get bumped around. The hard drive might have just gotten bumped and unplugged a little. I came across this last week actually. On the bottom of the laptop there should be a panel or something held in by a few screws that gives you access to the hard drive. Open this panel, unplug the drive completely and then replug it in. Button it back up and try turning it on.

 

[lilminx]

Thanks for all of the suggestions. I'll show him this thread and have him try to figure out what's wrong, based on your replies.

 

[cd1_christine]

One other thing...

If the hard drive gets unplugged so it's not detected, then yes, it will do this, as blueyez said.

If the BIOS loses it's programming, so it can't find the hard drive, or isn't set to boot from it, it will also do this. This can happen if the motherboard battery dies. My wife's is currently on it's way out this way, and every few boots she has to set the clock, turn if off and back on, then it boots fine. One of these days I'm going to get around to fixing it.

It could also be that Windows is corrupted on the drive, or maybe just the bootloader. (Is this Windows XP?)
Your chances of recovering files are much higher with this error than if it started booting Windows, then went to a blue screen, or just rebooted and started again. Although I've successfully recovered data off drives that were making all sorts of horrible noises after they started failing. Then again, I do this stuff for a living......