C Drive Missing

[Rainwalker]

OK....It went something like this. Turned on computer. Monitor went blank. I said "What the ***". Wiggled monitor computer connection plug. Windows appeared, but with message informing me the Operating System could not be found. Not sure the two are related. I repeated what I had said earlier. Did various reboots, safe mode and otherwise. No system restores. Windows unable to fix with repair mode. Under "Computer", thumb drives as others all are showing, but not C Drive. Is there a program I can download and stick on a thumb drive that might restore the drive ? I had recently done a malware scan with a couple of respected programs and they found nothing....maybe a rootkit ?
Please...no advice about backups. :)
Win 7/64

[Cudni]

if you look in Bios is hard drive there?

[ellison64]

-{ Quote: "OK....It went something like this. Turned on computer. Monitor went blank. I said "What the ***". Wiggled monitor computer connection plug. Windows appeared, but with message informing me the Operating System could not be found. Not sure the two are related. I repeated what I had said earlier. Did various reboots, safe mode and otherwise. No system restores. Windows unable to fix with repair mode. Under "Computer", thumb drives as others all are showing, but not C Drive. Is there a program I can download and stick on a thumb drive that might restore the drive ? I had recently done a malware scan with a couple of respected programs and they found nothing....maybe a rootkit ?
Please...no advice about backups. :)
Win 7/64" }-

I had the "operating system could not be found" error on a friends laptop Which had the hard drive cover missing and the hard drive had worked its way out a little.Pushing it back in fixed it.Is it possible you have a faulty hard drive lead connection on your desktop?
ellison

[Rainwalker]

Greetings Cudni..Unable to to access Bios....Upon bootup I see ' Windows is loading files'. Then I see 'Reboot after selecting proper boot device or insert boot media' etc.

[Rainwalker]

-{ Quote: "I had the "operating system could not be found" error on a friends laptop Which had the hard drive cover missing and the hard drive had worked its way out a little.Pushing it back in fixed it.Is it possible you have a faulty hard drive lead connection on your desktop?
ellison" }-

Hello ellison64.....Crap !....I got to thinking about what you have written and remembered that I had recently vacuumed out the case....although I was careful, I was not as careful as I usually am.....I think I moved a capacitor a tad. I then pushed it back. Maybe I ended up shorting something out. Just for the heck of it I moved the sata cables over one.Knew it was a long shot. With them moved over I tried to access Bios as reported. I will move them back to where they probably want to be, attempt to open Bios and report back......UGH
BTW...Over time I have inadvertently bumped capacitors, moved them back to upright and continued uneventfully down the road of blissful ignorance.

[Keyboard_Commando]

Bios access should come before windows boot up. Are you tapping delete soon as you turn the pc on?

[Rainwalker]

-{ Quote: "Bios access should come before windows boot up. Are you tapping delete soon as you turn the pc on?" }-

Yes, I understand. The first onscreen activity I see is 'Widows is loading files. This is above a progress bar showing files being loaded. No matter when( before-after or during) I tap F8, F10, F11 or delete I always receive the same message....as shown above in other posting.
So is there anything that can be done, in terms of downloading a program, that might get things going ?

[axial]

Are you turning the power off on your system (aka "hard reset"), rather than just hitting a reset button? I've had occasions where the system needs to be powered off in order to successfully restart. The most recent occasion had the "operating system could not be found" after 2x soft resets, only by turning off the power for approx. 30 seconds would the system actually boot.

[Rainwalker]

Yup.....I thought of that, but it made no difference...I have been having a lot of problems with the OS freezing of late so I did a few disk checks etc and all SEEMED well.....no new software, hardware, bios updates and whatnot, so I kept on keeping on. Whenever those freezes happened I would do a forced hard shutdown, so I think maybe after a number of those the bios went south....who knows. Thanks for getting back. Have a peaceful productive New Year.

[Noob]

Do you have a secondary HDD ?
Check if BIOS is detecting it.
Or probably not plugged correctly or something is loose so many things xD

[Keyboard_Commando]

-{ Quote: "Yes, I understand. The first onscreen activity I see is 'Widows is loading files. This is above a progress bar showing files being loaded. No matter when( before-after or during) I tap F8, F10, F11 or delete I always receive the same message....as shown above in other posting.
So is there anything that can be done, in terms of downloading a program, that might get things going ?" }-

Well that's weird that it's not letting you into the bios, though, I have had this happen to me before, I swapped keyboards, cleared CMOS, tried flashing bios ... I did allsorts to try and get into bios but couldn't.

Might be worth stripping everything to basics (remove all other drives, USB drives especially) and try booting, even try clearing CMOS.

[Rainwalker]

-{ Quote: "Well that's weird that it's not letting you into the bios, though, I have had this happen to me before, I swapped keyboards, cleared CMOS, tried flashing bios ... I did allsorts to try and get into bios but couldn't.

Might be worth stripping everything to basics (remove all other drives, USB drives especially) and try booting, even try clearing CMOS." }-

So how did you finally get it working ? Or did you..............I have long since tried all of your good suggestions ;(

[GlobalForce]

I'm not saying this (http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org/how_do_i_remedy_an_operating_sys.htm) fixes anything, simply food for thought. The other consideration, a faulty cable (http://superuser.com/questions/78836/working-hard-drive-but-operating-system-not-found-how-to-make-visible-to-bio). Ultimately, sounds like the repair shop ....

[Rainwalker]

-{ Quote: "I'm not saying this (http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org/how_do_i_remedy_an_operating_sys.htm) fixes anything, simply food for thought. The other consideration, a faulty cable (http://superuser.com/questions/78836/working-hard-drive-but-operating-system-not-found-how-to-make-visible-to-bio). Ultimately, sounds like the repair shop ...." }-

Thanks GlobalForce....good info to have....yupper on the last sentence.
You have a fine New Year.

[GlobalForce]

You too bud - good luck. Lets hope it'll be someone who knows what they're doing.

[Rainwalker]

-{ Quote: "You too bud - good luck. Lets hope it'll be someone who knows what they're doing." }-

LOL...

[Keyboard_Commando]

-{ Quote: "So how did you finally get it working ? Or did you..............I have long since tried all of your good suggestions ;(" }-

In answer; No I didn't manage to get it running - I literally tried everything though, it bugged me. It bugged me so much I kept the friggin motherboard for about 3 years figuring one day I'd eventually crack the problem. I never did of course, so i slung it out.

You might be able to have it fixed on warranty if it's still covered.

[Rainwalker]

-{ Quote: "In answer; No, it bugged me. It bugged me so much I kept the friggin motherboard for about 3 years figuring one day I'd eventually crack the problem. I never did of course, so i slung it out.

ROTFL....Too funny dude...too funny !!