FabSwingers.com forum: Missing operating system error

By *ophieslut OP TV/TS
over a year ago

Central

Any PC literate folks know an easy solution to a laptop which recognized an error, rebooted and displays"missing operating system' when booting please?

It's Win 10 pro but I have no disks. I'm hoping it's not a hard drive failure

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

Sad to say sounds like a HDD failure BUT I am no expert

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

"Any PC literate folks know an easy solution to a laptop which recognized an error, rebooted and displays"missing operating system' when booting please?

It's Win 10 pro but I have no disks. I'm hoping it's not a hard drive failure "
windows 10 omg

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

I think press f12 when 1st booting then you can select safe mode see if it boots that along with you should have reinstall and stuff on there it’s been years since I used a computer but that’s what I can remember

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By *opping_candyWoman
over a year ago

West Yorkshire

I had a similar issue recently but managed to recover it. Google your make and model plus recovery and you should be able to find a button that you can press repeatedly when starting up, that will take you to a recovery option... Unless the hard drive is fried.

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By *ophieslut OP TV/TS
over a year ago

Central

"I think press f12 when 1st booting then you can select safe mode see if it boots that along with you should have reinstall and stuff on there it’s been years since I used a computer but that’s what I can remember "

Thank you - I'll try this. I've come back to bed as it p'd me off.

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By *den-Valley-coupleCouple
over a year ago

Cumbria

Windows 10 is broken keep win7 alive...

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By *ophieslut OP TV/TS
over a year ago

Central

"Windows 10 is broken keep win7 alive... "

I loved windows 7 but 10 has been great

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By *ophieslut OP TV/TS
over a year ago

Central

Still got the same problem -

Pressing F12 at startup takes me to Toshiba setup utility, where i checked boot order. It's booting from hard drive. No option shows for boot with safe mode.

I restored defaults in BIOS, where HD is first boot option.

Restarted but problem continues. I don't have another pc to download anything to help.

Any ideas? Thanks

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

Turn on and Hold down Shift F8 immediately. That will give you a menu with options.

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By *ophieslut OP TV/TS
over a year ago

Central

"Turn on and Hold down Shift F8 immediately. That will give you a menu with options. "

Thank you - which options should I use? Is that safe mode access - would it work with the missing operating system error message?

Thanks so much. I'm heading home to try it.

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

"Turn on and Hold down Shift F8 immediately. That will give you a menu with options.

Thank you - which options should I use? Is that safe mode access - would it work with the missing operating system error message?

Thanks so much. I'm heading home to try it."

Try safe mode first. If not try whatever recovery system options are available. But, it does sound like a critical error

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By *ophieslut OP TV/TS
over a year ago

Central

"Turn on and Hold down Shift F8 immediately. That will give you a menu with options.

Thank you - which options should I use? Is that safe mode access - would it work with the missing operating system error message?

Thanks so much. I'm heading home to try it.

Try safe mode first. If not try whatever recovery system options are available. But, it does sound like a critical error

Thanks again - Shift F8 power up gave the same missing operating system message. I've only got to get F12 and power up still to work.

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By *bonynivoryCouple
over a year ago

market harborough

It's one of three things:

Easiest is you've left a USB drive or a Cd disc in the Cd drive, check and if you have reboot and it should be fine, unplug any USB devices as some things have tiny disc type memory built in.

2, you have some corrupt files, there should be a recovery partition to fix this.

3, you're hard drive is dead, get to the shop and get it replaced.

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By *bonynivoryCouple
over a year ago

market harborough

Toshiba recovery should be something like this.

http://www.tomsguide.com/forum/86067-35-restore-toshiba-back-factory-settings

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By *iercedItMan
over a year ago

North West

I'd stop keep powering on and off, if it's on its way out you could end up finishing it off and losing your data.

Id be ordering a usb 2.5" enclosure, check if the drive is even spinning up. Make sure you choose the right type ide/sata. When you connect it to your laptop, and power on it will still spin up the USB to test.

Without another system, your literally going to have to take the 2.5 enclosure to your local library and check it's functioning if it spins up in your current machines usb when powering on, check if it's readable.

If it's readable you have 2 options. If you have a DVD/CD/floppy you can make a boot disk and try to repair it, run chkdsk etc. Alternatively you maybe able to do a chkdsk at the library, and see if it will go to recovery mode when back in the laptop.

On balance I'd pick up Reasonable priced ssd, reinstall and then work on data recovery if needed.

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By *ophieslut OP TV/TS
over a year ago

Central

Thanks so much EbonyandIvory and Piercedit. It's an SSD drive I had put in at Christmas, so will be under warranty, if it's dead.

I don't think all of the original Toshiba software is on it since the reinstalled upgrade - I bought 10pro and a distant relative did the drive and Windows installations for me. They don't appear available, following calls/texts but I'd have a warranty I'm guessing on the Amazon purchased SanDisk SSD.

It's come just as I'm trying to book a holiday

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By *ophieslut OP TV/TS
over a year ago

Central

I'm not caring about data recovery, as I backup my important stuff.

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By *iercedItMan
over a year ago

North West

I would get on to Amazon, exchange or refund, and reinstall then, it's not worth playing with a dodgy drive when Amazon's 12 months are still in effect and the drive is potentially off.

Reinstall be be trickier. You can download direct from MS and burn the discs then reinstall using your upgrade codes.

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By *ophieslut OP TV/TS
over a year ago

Central

"I would get on to Amazon, exchange or refund, and reinstall then, it's not worth playing with a dodgy drive when Amazon's 12 months are still in effect and the drive is potentially off.

Reinstall be be trickier. You can download direct from MS and burn the discs then reinstall using your upgrade codes.

Thanks - sound advice

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By *rFunBoyMan
over a year ago

Longridge

"Any PC literate folks know an easy solution to a laptop which recognized an error, rebooted and displays"missing operating system' when booting please?

It's Win 10 pro but I have no disks. I'm hoping it's not a hard drive failure "

More than likely hard drive failure otherwise virus corruption of master boot record.

Need to try to read and recover drive and content by putting it on another pc.

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

Just to save you some time go directly to SanDisk re warranty.

Also you can download a Windows 10 image from Microsoft

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

If you still have the original hdd installed along side the ssd then you might have a partition with the original recovery stored on it. If the original hdd was removed then im sorry to say you'll be a bit buggered if the ssd had corrupted.

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By *bonynivoryCouple
over a year ago

market harborough

Its a laptop, that would be clever

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By *ancersCouple
over a year ago

Lurking in the forums

Had this a few weeks ago. Friend of a friend had a laptop that did exactly the same, taken to a computer shop and was told the HDD was dead and needed replacing. They were up-sold to a new laptop, and the old laptop got passed down to me to have a look at.

Booted it from a linux usb stick (Mint), and ran the 'Disks' utility. HDD was fine, but had been corrupted by a virus. 15 minutes later, Mint was installed and running from the HDD. Laptop returned to friend, who's quite happily browsing / emailing / watching cat videos without any worries of being infected by virus / malware.

You can download the Win 10 image and create a bootable usb / dvd and do the same, but you'll be at the same risk of virus / malware in the future.

If you were closer, I'd offer to re-install it for you. Best of luck. x

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By *2000ManMan
over a year ago

Worthing

"Had this a few weeks ago. Friend of a friend had a laptop that did exactly the same, taken to a computer shop and was told the HDD was dead and needed replacing. They were up-sold to a new laptop, and the old laptop got passed down to me to have a look at. "
be careful about pc repair shops, some are good some will quote you for replacement this and that when not needed.

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By *ophieslut OP TV/TS
over a year ago

Central

Thankyou MrFunboy, ThreeXF, Kinkygeek, Dancers and A2000, for your thoughtfulness insights and advice.

I'm still hoping it's not drive failure - perhaps too much of an optimist

. Hoping it's corruption, such as of the Master Boot Record, that MrFunBoy proposed.

I checked libraries here for what I couldn't download and forgot it would not be dotExe file, which they ban, but an iso image. I perhaps lost that chance for today - if the pcs aren't all in use by kids on holidays.

I agree with a few of your thoughts about not taking it somewhere for repair where they flog upgrades etc - as a student, I'm loathe to spend lots of cash needlessly. I've lost the old hdd, so no recovery potential from that.

It's just about patience, as ShagTonight would say.

Thanks to everyone once again. This might help others in future searching for similar here - there's a lot of dross on the net, usually aimed at selling you a potential solution, typically partition software solutions.

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

Sorry I had this same issue with my laptop

Took to a local pc repair shop and couldn’t retrieve any data or save laptop my HD was buggered

Hope your is ok

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By *ophieslut OP TV/TS
over a year ago

Central

"Sorry I had this same issue with my laptop

Took to a local pc repair shop and couldn’t retrieve any data or save laptop my HD was buggered

Hope your is ok"

Thanks - I'm surprised that it wouldn't have been ok if you had had a new hard drive. I swapped my old drive out after a different issue last year and fancied a faster solid state drive, which has worked well since last year.

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

"Sorry I had this same issue with my laptop

Took to a local pc repair shop and couldn’t retrieve any data or save laptop my HD was buggered

Hope your is ok

It might have been but it was more the lose of data that buggered me as I hadn’t backed up stupidly for a year so lost lots of work

But oh well love an learn haha and bought a beautiful iMac instead hahahaha

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

i had a similar issue ...i bought a replacement drive in the end because no matter what i tried nothing worked .... about 5 years later a mate gave me a £5 hard drive dock and so i plugged it all in ... lo and behold it waltzed me through the repair procedure of it's own volition and boom .. it was fixed

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