# Vista's booting up saying No operating system found



## Dreamcleaver (Mar 29, 2008)

Hey all... New here.. hopefully you guys know whats going on with my laptop...

Its an hp dv.. it came with a partition for recovery, therefore no cd.. After surfing the web last night, I booted up to receive an os not found message. In the bios, I reset settings to default and I believe that its not recognizing the hard-drive.. The system recovery function attached to the F11 key simply doesnt work.. all I can get it to do is go into the BIOS but that hasnt really done me any good!

Help! Thanks!


----------



## Placehold (Mar 9, 2008)

Hello Dreamcleaver

Welcome to TSF


Ok right there is a process called Disk2Disk recovery which allows you to recover the system without recovery CDs,It uses that recoevery partition and will return your system to factory settings and will delete everything stored on the machine.

To initiate press ALT + F10 when the computer is first turned on. Hold down the ALT key and repeatedly press F10. The window of opportunity is very small so may take a few attempts.

Alternatively someone was kind enough to upload a vista recovery download, download and burn to disk

Restart with the CD in the drawer and recover the PC that way

Vista Recovery Disk

Vista Recovery Disk - Torrent

I would advise try with the first option before using any recovery disks

I believe this issue on Vista machines can be caused if the system is using an NVIDIA nForce 430/410 Southbridge chipset

Once you recover the system to avoid this happening again please download one of the following updates from automatic updates page

•	NVIDIA Corporation driver update for NVIDIA MCP61 Serial ATA Controller
•	NVIDIA Corporation driver update for NVIDIA nForce 430/410 Serial ATA Controller
•	NVIDIA Corporation driver update for NVIDIA nForce 590/570/550 Serial ATA Controller
•	NVIDIA Corporation driver update for NVIDIA nForce4 Serial ATA Controller

Regards




Craig


----------



## Dreamcleaver (Mar 29, 2008)

Thanks a lot Craig, Im going to do that and report back here with my result.

Awesome response, much appreciated.


----------



## Dreamcleaver (Mar 29, 2008)

Hmm it says my system recovery can be accessed via F11.... but when F11 does nothing... when I hold alt and mash F10 or F11, the laptop makes an unpleasant piercing noise.... furthermore F10 takes me into the bios.. When I try to run a test on the HD, it reports no IDE drive found..

I have this computer for 2-3 months from Circuit City... if the harddrive is fried does anyone know if its under manufacturers warranty?


----------



## Dreamcleaver (Mar 29, 2008)

Placehold said:


> Hello Dreamcleaver
> 
> •	NVIDIA Corporation driver update for NVIDIA MCP61 Serial ATA Controller
> •	NVIDIA Corporation driver update for NVIDIA nForce 430/410 Serial ATA Controller
> ...


Not sure of the chipset, but its got a GeForce 8400GS 256 dedicated...


----------



## wareagle (Mar 3, 2008)

Placehold said:


> Alternatively someone was kind enough to upload a vista recovery download, download and burn to disk
> 
> Restart with the CD in the drawer and recover the PC that way
> 
> ...


Can you explain in simple terms what the Recovery Disk posted allows a person to do? For instance, can a person do an in-place install to copy/update any files that might be damaged? Something we used to do under NT 4.0 or 2000 to restore an installation to original files.

I'm still looking for a way to restore functionality in *Media Player 11* and do an in-place re-install. Vista has no way for me to restore Media Player 11 to its original state. Argh! All I can do is hope for an update to appear that will restore functionality.


----------



## Placehold (Mar 9, 2008)

> Can you explain in simple terms what the Recovery Disk posted allows a person to do? For instance, can a person do an in-place install to copy/update any files that might be damaged? Something we used to do under NT 4.0 or 2000 to restore an installation to original files.


The Recovery disk allows you to repair the system however if your having issues with WMP11 then you can uninstall WMP11 and install a fresh copy or repair WMP11 by accessing it through Add/Remove programs
Right click WMP11 and select change. This will then bring up and option to repair WMP11 with new files. Make sure you have a fresh copy of WMP11 on your desktop

Regards




Craig


----------



## wareagle (Mar 3, 2008)

Placehold said:


> The Recovery disk allows you to repair the system however if your having issues with WMP11 then you can uninstall WMP11 and install a fresh copy or repair WMP11 by accessing it through Add/Remove programs
> Right click WMP11 and select change. This will then bring up and option to repair WMP11 with new files. Make sure you have a fresh copy of WMP11 on your desktop
> 
> Regards
> ...


I may be blind, but neither Windows Media Player 11, Media Player 11 nor WMP11 appear in the "Programs and Features" of Vista Home Premium.

I've taken this laptop back to the first Restore Point, and it hasn't restored functionality. I've downloaded the latest update on the download pages, and it tells me, "The installed version is newer than the update." Well, duh?! There appears to be no standalone version of WMP11 for my version of Vista.


----------



## Placehold (Mar 9, 2008)

Hey

Sorry bout that i keep refering to the changes i made on my machine, Windows Media Player 11 is intergrated on a standard Vista OS, you can repair WMP11 tho by downloading another standalone instance of WMP11 and clicking repair before the installation starts

Windows Media Player 11

regards



Craig


----------



## wareagle (Mar 3, 2008)

Placehold said:


> Hey
> 
> Sorry bout that i keep refering to the changes i made on my machine, Windows Media Player 11 is intergrated on a standard Vista OS, you can repair WMP11 tho by downloading another standalone instance of WMP11 and clicking repair before the installation starts
> 
> ...


Hmm. I downloaded the executable, and here's the result.


----------



## wareagle (Mar 3, 2008)

Is *this* what I should consider?

HP has a Recovery Manager, which allows a person to create Recovery Disks. Unfortunately, I haven't run that feature yet. I wanted my machine to reflect my current setup, but in the meantime, I lost Media Player functionality. Specifically, I cannot download streaming audio or video. Local media plays fine.

I'm considering starting all over with a factory install if Disk2Disk would provide that. I can backup my data to a network server and rebuild.


----------



## Placehold (Mar 9, 2008)

wareagle said:


> Is *this* what I should consider?
> 
> HP has a Recovery Manager, which allows a person to create Recovery Disks. Unfortunately, I haven't run that feature yet. I wanted my machine to reflect my current setup, but in the meantime, I lost Media Player functionality. Specifically, I cannot download streaming audio or video. Local media plays fine.
> 
> I'm considering starting all over with a factory install if Disk2Disk would provide that. I can backup my data to a network server and rebuild.


I would advise this process to be performed when it can be

Now i just literally got off the phone to someone who had problems pulling that up, now they had a toshiba laptop with vista basic and it wasn't willing to let us have use that restore option However in such PC's as sony there is an option under _Start\All programs\Vaio\Vaio restore center_ that pulls up the exact same menu.

Try the disk2disk option and see how that goes for you

Regards




Craig


----------



## Tumbleweed36 (May 14, 2005)

Dreamcleaver, before you go too far with some type of restoring, what message are you getting now...is it finding the hard disk at all or does it say "no hard disk found yet?


----------

