CGOULET

my girlfriend has a dell inspiron 2650 and a few months back it would randomly go to a black screen and say OPERATION SYSTEM NOT FOUND.

so i messed around with it a bit, got it to stop for a couple weeks but then it came back.

then my dad went through it, come to find out a boot log file was missing, so he fixed that, problem solved.

that was about 3-4 weeks ago, and what happend when i got up this morning? oh yea, same screen.

so if anyone has anyideas on how to fix this, its very appreciated

thanks, chris.

Churnd

Which OS?

If XP, Try booting to the recovery console and run these commands in this order:

fixboot
scandisk /f /r (will take a long time).

If that doesn't work, try reinstalling the OS. Don't format the drive, just reinstall. Your stuff will be there when you're done.

Of course, this is assuming you don't have a virus or spyware. If you do, that's a different story.

CGOULET

thanks alot, ill try these things this week. and yes it is XP.

"If that doesn't work, try reinstalling the OS. Don't format the drive, just reinstall. Your stuff will be there when you're done."

so she wont lose anything your sure? she wouldnt be too happy about that lol!

but thanks ill repost what happens

Churnd

Assuming you do it right! Back up her stuff before if you're not sure. If you ever see a screen that says "format" anywhere on it, you've gone the wrong direction.

Also, make sure you run those other commands from the recovery console first. If you have any bad sectors or a faulty boot sector, those commands should fix 'em. The second is especially important because if you don't use it, the repair install won't do much to fix your problem.

The recovery console option is on the first screen of XP Setup (if you boot off the CD).

You re-install by selecting to repair the current installation.

Ah! A picture is worth a thousand words. Here we go:

http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repa...sting%20Setup:

Howtos for other stuff here also: http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repair_xp.htm

ldivinag

with dells, problem is the dell proprietary HD connection (btw, all laptops have proprietary connections to the standard 2.5" IDE drive)...

so many times with diff inspiron models, all i do is pop the HD chassis out and pop it back in...

so they next time this happens, go into the bios and see if it sees the HD. if it doesnt, do the pop trick...

now i assume this happens when you first turn on the machine, right? the thermal expansion that cycles from hot to cold does this...

ldivinag

technically, it's called WINDOWS REPAIR.

i have done this so many times in the past few months. saves everything. sometimes when i forget (or too lazy) to SYSPREP an image and just dump it onto another machine, i just run the REPAIR and it takes about an hour, but programs, user account, data, etc are all saved.

it just dumps a fresh copy of windows.

but as usual, BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!