computer won't boot, no operating system found

AddRAM said:

I don't understand what that could mean... unless the hard drive contains Windows Server?

That`s exactly what it means :)

His specs show Windows 7 Home Premium. What is the hard drive doing containing Windows Server, making its partitions apparently unreadable by PW and the BIOS of the laptop?

This was presumably a regular working Win7 Home Premium laptop, until all of a sudden it's not??

AddRAM said:

Who knows, but I tried to use PW (A few years ago when I first learned to use the boot cd) on a machine with windows Server and got the same message.

Even though PW boot cd clearly says it supports windows server.

Bootable Partition Manger | MiniTool Partition Wizard Bootable Edition

Actually, I don't think the Home and Professsional versions of PW support Windows Server. Here's the product comparison, and it's clearly NOT supported except by the Server and higher versions of PW.

Being free, I believe the free standalone boot CD is a "lower flavor", i.e. equivalent to the Home version (which is also free). I believe the standalone boot CD comes in the same "flavors" as the product itself, else everybody could just use the standalone boot CD to do everything from the standalone boot CD, and never have to purchase one of the "upper flavors" for Windows which are not free.

So, I'm suspecting that if the OP's hard drive somehow is actually a Windows Server drive (which admittedly, is a shocking magical transition from a previous Win7 Home Premium drive) that it's not a surprise the free standalone PW boot CD wouldn't support it.

Anyway, this is certainly an interesting story with some very odd clues. Either a catastrophic drive failure rendering it useless, or there might be more to the story than we know yet. Trying one of the suggested additional alternatives to try and read it (or fail) would be very interesting. Either connecting it to another PC with a spare SATA data and power cable, or connecting it through something like that Kingwin SATA-to-USB adapter... either or both of those experiments would be informative.

Without trying to break our heads on the issue why PW is not running into OP's system, it would be in the interests of the OP to try and read the drive with a live Linux CD/pendrive and in case it fails, run Seatools for DOS to check the status of his Seagate drive and if possible to allow it to repair as indicated in my post #18.

dsperber said:

MonkeeMadness said:

downloaded the second one, i get the same error. I will order the SATA to USB you suggested and give that a try.... i will post my findings once i get it

Well, given the results from PW standalone which apparently can't read the drive via the machine's BIOS, and as was already mentioned the fact that the BIOS sees it as having 0GB capacity (shown in your screenshot), it ......... Looking grim right now, I'm afraid.

I plugged it in to another laptop and it didn't show up..... this it was shows in disk management:

jumanji said:

Hi MonkeeMadness,

Before you take out the HDD from the laptop, please try to access the drive from a live Linux pendrive to check whether it can access the drive. Follow the post here Is there any way of saving a completely unrecognisable hard drive?

If it still fails to find your drive:

You seem to have a Seagate drive. Run Seagate Seatools for DOS and check your drive. It can also repair the drive if possible. SeaTools for DOS and Windows - How to Use

Rufus: Rufus - Create bootable USB drives the easy way

Lucid Puppy (Ubuntu Compatible Build) 5.2.8 ISO from Long-Term-Supported WaryPuppy (LTS)

I will have to give this a try, the SATA to USB didn't work. It will probably take me a couple of days to post my finding, i will be away from the bad laptop, possibly until the weekend. I will let you know if it works, thanks.

AddRAM said:

Who knows, but I tried to use PW (A few years ago when I first learned to use the boot cd) on a machine with windows Server and got the same message.

Even though PW boot cd clearly says it supports windows server.

Bootable Partition Manger | MiniTool Partition Wizard Bootable Edition

But I hope it`s irrelevant to the OP`s problem. :)

Agreed, that makes no sense.

jumanji said:

Hi MonkeeMadness,

Before you take out the HDD from the laptop, please try to access the drive from a live Linux pendrive to check whether it can access the drive. Follow the post here Is there any way of saving a completely unrecognisable hard drive?

If it still fails to find your drive:

You seem to have a Seagate drive. Run Seagate Seatools for DOS and check your drive. It can also repair the drive if possible. SeaTools for DOS and Windows - How to Use

Rufus: Rufus - Create bootable USB drives the easy way

Lucid Puppy (Ubuntu Compatible Build) 5.2.8 ISO from Long-Term-Supported WaryPuppy (LTS)

I was able to try both of them today:

LUCID PUPPY: Only my optical DVD/BD shows up, no C drive or any other drive

SEATOOLS: Model id shows up, serial #, test progress=idle, test results = failed.... also tried the long test and right away Sector Repair Failure is what shows up... have i tried everything possible?


Do you why when i connected the HD via USB to my other laptop it shows the following:
On the picture I posted of the disk management it shows disk 2 with 102MB, it's a 500GB HD......

If in-situ ( that is in its original position on your laptop) the drive cannot be accessed with Lucid Puppy and Seatools for DOS gave a fail report, I would say that your drive is dead and will go back to TVeblen's learned post #18. ( I do not want to repeat it. :))

Yes, no other interface in-between. Direct SATA connection on a desktop as an internal drive. Try PW(Windows) and SeaTools for Windows to repair if possible.

( Please post a screenshot how the drive appears in Windows Disk Management and Partition Wizard with the direct connection on a desktop. That will help other experts here to read and suggest further course of action.)