"Error loading operating system" - how to recover?

Message

wonderdogger · #1 Post by **wonderdogger** » Fri Nov 24, 2006 2:50 am

I posted a question about a problem on my T42 recently which you can see at http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=33467.

I am not sure if this is related but it might be. Now on boot up I have the error "Error loading operating system". Nothing else happens. Immediately before this happened I had been running "Evidence Eliminator" which I had run before with no problem. I am not sure if this is related.

I don't have recovery disks. Is there anything I can do to check out what is going on? Is there some recovery software I can download? The operating system is XP. I only have access to one thinkpad but do have an old Toshiba laptop.

Thanks.

PS I changed the BIOS Setup to boot from the Win XP CD and it appears to try to do this but comes up with the same error.

PPS I vaguely remember when it first crashed coming up with a blue screen which mentioned a file name that I think started with N and was a ".sys" file (possibly NTFS.SYS but don't quote me)

crazyfrog · #2 Post by **crazyfrog** » Fri Nov 24, 2006 9:20 am

The file started with N should be "NTLDR".
It might help if you google "NTLDR"+"missing".

#3 Post by **GomJabbar** » Fri Nov 24, 2006 1:02 pm

You might try fixboot. This seems to fix non-booting XP systems with missing NTLDR. See following thread: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=19444

wonderdogger · #4 Post by **wonderdogger** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 4:35 am

I am trying to track down a WinXP boot disc to do this but in the mean time I booted Ubuntu (linux distribution) and tried to mount the hard drive. However it failed giving error messages "invalid boot sector checksum" and "primary boot sector is invalid" amongst others.

I really do think the physical harddrive itself is ok having just recently scanned for problems and everything came up perfect.

I also note that if I remove the harddrive and try to boot normally, the error message is different : "Operating system not found".

Any further thoughts of what this might be?

#5 Post by **GomJabbar** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 9:38 am

There are some free hard drive diagnostic utilities you can run to make sure your hard drive is OK.

Hitachi Drive Fitness Test

Fujitsu Diagnostic Tool

EDIT: One other thing. You hard drive should be partitioned in the computer (ThinkPad) that you want it to boot from, otherwise you can run into drive geometry errors. If this hard drive was not partitioned in the same computer that you want it to boot from, then remove all partitions and start over.

#6 Post by **carbon_unit** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 12:22 pm

If you don't have a floppy drive you can go to http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ and make this cd, It has those tools on it and more, all from a bootable cd.

wonderdogger · #7 Post by **wonderdogger** » Sun Nov 26, 2006 2:09 am

Thanks so much for all the suggestions. I have learnt so much and picked up some invaluable tools along the way.

Furthermore I finally got my hands on an XP CD and the fixboot command worked a treat. You guys are legends. So happy I got a Thinkpad.

(Strange how a drop can lead to a corrupt boot sector though? The HD is otherwise in perfectly good shape according to the tools suggested by others above)

"Error loading operating system" - how to recover?

"Error loading operating system" - how to recover?

Who is online