"OS not found"

  • Thread starter Thread starter Sally
  • Start date Start date
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Sally

I recently installed Ad-aware on my father's computer (running XP home) and
all was fine until yesterday. While surfing the net his screen went black
with the message Operating System not found. After several (and I do mean
several) attempts I was able to boot in safe mode and do a system restore
and backed the system up 1 week. All seemed fine for about 30 minutes, then
the computer froze and then went to the same black screen with the same
message. Has anyone else had problems with Ad-aware? I have it on my pc also
running XP home edition and I have not had any problems so I am thinking it
must be something else, like maybe he deleted something he shouldn't have.

Ok, so any ideas on how I can get this thing to boot and what to do to it
after a successful boot? It is an HP and has the recovery on a partition,
so unfortunately we do not have recovery disks ( but we will if I ever get
it back up). We were able to run a full system AV scan last night before
the big crash today, and Norton picked up nothing. I have never run across
this problem before and I am just completely lost.
 
my dad had similar probs to your and his turned out to be
bad sections on the hard disc but we used a program to fix
it cant remember name got it from computer fair but after
we fixed the hdd we still had to reinstal the os, it
turned out the problem was his battery charger for his
electric wheel chair was (as told to me)-inverting the
magnetic field on the hdd hope this helps and check for
any strong electric fields by your comp
 
I don't know that it is related to the use of Ad-Aware, but if it is, Ad-Aware has a "restore" function..if you set it up that way, you should be able to restore anything that you picked for removal. Open your Ad-Aware, check to see if you have anything to resore..if there is, restore the selected items, reboot and see if that worked. You don't need to be connected to the internet for this.
Just one question. Does this happen ONLY while on the internet?
 
No, it happened the first time while on the internet. After that it happened
while trying to boot. I finally got it to successfully boot up I did system
restore and all seemed fine for a little while. I ran ad-aware again
thinking that in doing a restore that some of the spyware might need to be
removed again. After running ad aware I got the black screen again. Wasn't
even connected to the internet that time. I disconnected the power supply
for the night because for whatever strange reason, sometimes that has helped
with my computer. I wanted to get suggestions from you guys before I
attempted to do anything else. Dad is ready to "put a hammer through it".
(lol)

Thanks for any and all suggestions.


lvee said:
I don't know that it is related to the use of Ad-Aware, but if it is,
Click to expand...
Ad-Aware has a "restore" function..if you set it up that way, you should be
able to restore anything that you picked for removal. Open your Ad-Aware,
check to see if you have anything to resore..if there is, restore the
selected items, reboot and see if that worked. You don't need to be
connected to the internet for this.
 
Sally said:
I recently installed Ad-aware on my father's computer (running XP home) and
all was fine until yesterday. While surfing the net his screen went black
with the message Operating System not found. After several (and I do mean
several) attempts I was able to boot in safe mode and do a system restore
and backed the system up 1 week. All seemed fine for about 30 minutes, then
the computer froze and then went to the same black screen with the same
message. Has anyone else had problems with Ad-aware? I have it on my pc also
running XP home edition and I have not had any problems so I am thinking it
must be something else, like maybe he deleted something he shouldn't have.

Ok, so any ideas on how I can get this thing to boot and what to do to it
after a successful boot? It is an HP and has the recovery on a partition,
so unfortunately we do not have recovery disks ( but we will if I ever get
it back up). We were able to run a full system AV scan last night before
the big crash today, and Norton picked up nothing. I have never run across
this problem before and I am just completely lost.
Click to expand...

It's very likely a hardware problem. Could be the hard drive developing bad
sectors, which could mean that it's going to fail soon. Or it could be a
cable or IDE controller. Or possibly something else.

If it was a software problem, it wouldn't fix itself for you to be able to
reboot after it corrupted.

I'd suggest backing up whatever data you can't afford to lose, then try a
clean install of the operating system.
 
Sally said in news:[email protected]:
I recently installed Ad-aware on my father's computer (running XP
home) and all was fine until yesterday. While surfing the net his
screen went black with the message Operating System not found. After
several (and I do mean several) attempts I was able to boot in safe
mode and do a system restore and backed the system up 1 week. All
seemed fine for about 30 minutes, then the computer froze and then
went to the same black screen with the same message. Has anyone else
had problems with Ad-aware? I have it on my pc also running XP home
edition and I have not had any problems so I am thinking it must be
something else, like maybe he deleted something he shouldn't have.

Ok, so any ideas on how I can get this thing to boot and what to do
to it after a successful boot? It is an HP and has the recovery on a
partition, so unfortunately we do not have recovery disks ( but we
will if I ever get it back up). We were able to run a full system AV
scan last night before the big crash today, and Norton picked up
nothing. I have never run across this problem before and I am just
completely lost.
Click to expand...

Sounds like you hit the same program and the system crashes. Have you
tried rebooting using the install CD, use its first Repair option to
boot into Recovery Console mode, and ran "CHKDSK <drive> /R" to ensure
your file system and disk surface are okay?

Oops. Just read you got suckered into getting an HP that doesn't
include the install CD media. Haven't ever used the recovery diskettes
to see if they will let you boot into Recovery Console mode, but you can
get them at http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm (the links for Windows
XP actually take you to Microsoft pages for the downloads). Since this
diskette set is supposed to let you perform an install then maybe it
also will let you choose to Repair and go into Recovery Console mode
where you can run CHKDSK.
 
I recently installed Ad-aware on my father's computer (running XP home) and
all was fine until yesterday. While surfing the net his screen went black
with the message Operating System not found. After several (and I do mean
several) attempts I was able to boot in safe mode and do a system restore
and backed the system up 1 week. All seemed fine for about 30 minutes, then
the computer froze and then went to the same black screen with the same
message. Has anyone else had problems with Ad-aware? I have it on my pc also
running XP home edition and I have not had any problems so I am thinking it
must be something else, like maybe he deleted something he shouldn't have.

Ok, so any ideas on how I can get this thing to boot and what to do to it
after a successful boot? It is an HP and has the recovery on a partition,
so unfortunately we do not have recovery disks ( but we will if I ever get
it back up). We were able to run a full system AV scan last night before
the big crash today, and Norton picked up nothing. I have never run across
this problem before and I am just completely lost.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, this sounds like a hardware problem. It could just be
that something is loose, like boards, cables or memory modules. It could
also be a heat problem (dead CPU fan/blocked air vents), bad memory,
hard drive failure or a motherboard problem. I'd check the CPU fan first
then reseat all the plugs and boards, including memory. I'd also
download the hard drive manufacturer's disk diagnostics to see if the
hard drive is failing. Good luck.

BTW, I have been recommending Ad-Aware to all of my customers for at
least a year with not a single problem ever being reported. It's good
stuff and I can't imagine how it could cause your problems.

NRJ
 
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