Win 7 64 bit "Operating system not found"

DRJ1014

DRJ1014

Supreme [H]ardness
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Nov 11, 2003
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Upon starting my laptop the other day it didn't go through its normal boot process.

About 30 seconds after powering up I got this screen.



The "Operating system not found" popped up after about 25 seconds.

I restarted the laptop and it booted as if nothing was wrong.

A couple weeks ago I accidently put my laptop down a little to hard on my desk at work and I heard a noise as if a CD was in my CD drive and it was spinning and skipping. It happened for about 5 seconds then stopped. There was no CD in the drive and I have a SSD so im not exactly sure where the noise was coming from (maybe one of my fans..?). Im not sure if this is the cause of my problem but I have a feeling there is a high probability. I am normally very careful with my electronics but this day was just not my day.

Laptop was purchased in September.

Also off topic from this question... my Hard drive is 128 but under my computer it shows the max capacity is only 104gb. Is it because the operating system is backed up on the drive or did I just get cheaped out of 24gb? :(

Laptop specs:

Alienware m15x

i7 740QM Quad Core @ 1.73
8gb DDR3
128gb SSD
1gb DDR5 ATI Radeon M HD 5850
Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
 
maybe you fried the ssd.
128GB and 104GB might just be the formatted capacity or it has a hidden partition for restore.
 
It looks to me like it couldn't find the boot drive, tried and failed to network boot and then gave up.

Has it only done this once or does it do it frequently?

As for your second question there is probablly a recovery partition taking up some space, try looking in disk management. Also remember that windows uses binary gigabytes while drive vendors use decimal gigabytes.
 
@Zepher

That was one of my concerns also but after thinking about it, it has only done it once... If i fried it I think it would be doing it consistently but I could be wrong.

@plugwash

So far this has been the only time.

Im just a little worried because its a new laptop and not sure if its just a file read error or if there is a problem with the hardware.

I shall have to remember about the binary and decimal... thanks for that info I never knew. I will also check in the disk management.
 
So I did find the "Recovery" drive under disk management... My problem is I am unable to delete it.

Did a little reading around and it seems some people where able to just delete the partition while others where forced to reformat their whole computer in order to get rid of the recovery file.

This would be my first time formatting a dell computer so not sure what I should expect... if its anything different from a normal windows install or am I going to have to disable an option to make sure the recovery doesnt get put back on?
 
there's really no reason, imho, to remove the hidden recovery/utility partition.

FWIW, I had to do a lot of searching on google for a utility to remove the partition; and I had to do it from a boot disc. Can't remember why I needed to do it, though.
 
I want to get rid of it because its such a small ssd that I could use the space for programs. I have a 1.5TB storage drive that is plenty for music, pictures and documents. All my important documents are backed up on one of my mobile me accounts. I'm not one of those people that when they need to format need their pc exactly how it was so a fresh install doesn't bother me. I have never used the backup and prob never will.
 
so I didn't actually look at the picture before...

but that's the PXE boot failing. Which would be absolutely normal in most situations. Although, of course, it should be able to boot off the hard drive.

You may go into the BIOS settings and disable PXE boot from the boot order.
 
Good to know gunna do that now.

but... a couple days ago I got 'blue' screen


and it then forced a system restore... good thing I didnt delete it huh. So I did my first ever system restore >_< and so far so good. I haven't gotten a boot error yet so im hoping for the best.
 
OP, I've been getting that same error message too about not finding an OS.


It's completely random and it's done it with both an SSD and a mechanical HDD. Sometimes it will boot to a black screen with a flashing white underscore and just sit there until I reboot it... other times it will say that it cannot find the OS. It will also occasionally, upon displaying the windows logo, completely reboot the system back to the POST.

I have no idea whats causing these problems. It's happened with two different motherboards, PSU's and GPU's (and HDD's)

usually a quick reboot (or entering and exiting the BIOS) will fix the issue until it comes up again a few weeks later. It's very odd. Other than these issues on startup, the system is completely stable.
 
Yep sounds exactly like mine.

Edit: Just saw your sig
 
Yours does all of the above? Do you think that it could be a memory issue? It's very strange how random it seems to be.
 
The only one I haven't gotten is the blank screen with the flashing "_" but everything else seems about right.

I spent 30 min on the phone with alienware tech support and I think I have gotten more information from you guys than from them... I guess that should be expected though.
 
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