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Laptop Error: Operating System Not Found

L

l33t

Member
I have an old HP laptop with win98SE that wont boot.

After it POSTS, I get an error that says OPERATING SYSTEM NOT FOUND.

I tried booting with a win98 bootdisk and norton antivirus cd and neither of them detect a hard drive.

The laptop was dropped at the airport and I think the disk might be damaged but my aunt says that sometimes, it will bot fine but its very rare.

What can I do to recover some personal files on there before attempting to do a full restore? (thats if the hard drive is still in working conditions)
 
If the drive really does just work randomly, you can remove the drive and connect it to a PC with an adapter and copy to another computer (Search eBay for "2.5 3.5").

You usually get that error when the drive is not detected or unpartitioned and not when the drive is corrupt, unformatted or has damaged sectors.

Either figure out how to access the BIOS/CMOS setup or use the Win98 boot disk and run FDISK. See if it detects any drives.

The fact that it boots fine sometimes, but very rarely points to an internal drive connection problem. If the drop simply loosened or damaged the drive's connection inside, removing it and reinserting it may fix the problem. Also, most laptop drives are in "caddy's" with a separate connector. The real connector is likely to be undamaged and you will be able to backup fine when you remove it from the caddy to connect it to a standard computer.
 
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