Missing operating system message, cannot re-install windows 7

[zigzag3143]

The extended test using WD diagnostics (took 2 hours) came back with no errors. Will try chkdsk again - did not work yesterday though - something about RAW volumes?

EDIT - trying chkdsk /r from command prompt gave me this message:

The type of the file system is NTFS. Cannot lock current drive. Windows cannot run disk checking on this volume because it is write protected.

What now Greg?
Thanks!!

I defer to greg, just a quick drive by. If it is indeed write protected you can change that by booting as admin into a cmd prompt (shift +F10 on boot).

Go to the drive and type attrib -R *.* at the c:\> prompt

 

[gregrocker]

Follow Zigzag's guidance on running chkdsk /r as Admin.

Then follow the tutorial Karl posted to wipe the HD to clean install Win7.

Let us know how it goes.

 

[rjs1974]

FIXED!

Hi everyone,

Ok all resolved now. It turns out my PC was set up in a RAID config, but somehow the BIOS settings had reset and the SATA config had reverted to IDE, not RAID - no idea how though...

Anyway, amending this back to RAID and restarting means Windows boots as normal.

Many thanks for all the help and advice. Turned out to be a two second fix. Apparently this is the most common cause for the "Missing Operating System" message, so anyone else, look here first!

 

[neo101]

Greg,

Yes both HDs are shown in the BIOS, and no, no RAID array. It seems the Win 7 partition has been corrupted - Startup repair said the table was corrupted, but Testdisk could not find any partition to fix....

Tut, tut

Gregrocker clocked you @ the 16th hurdle - good on him!