Absolutely refuses to find the operating system

[dunnjt]

My old computer HP Pavillion is about 7 years old. I believe that a Scandisk operation was interrupted by simply turning off the computer. Now the computer refuses to find the operating system ( WIn 95)
In the settings - there is no primary hard drive recognized. I can enter the setting for the cyls., heads, sectors etc. but I cannot get the machine to recognize the hard drive at all. In the settings it just says "none" for the primary master hard drive.
I have :replaced the battery, tried boot disks, tried rescue disks, tried system restoration CDs. No matter what I do the response is the same. "Cannot find operating system" or something to that effect.
I have tried everything I know but can't seem to breath any life into this old machine. Could some one make a suggestion as to what I might try next? Am I missing something? If I could get the computer to "see" the hard drive I am sure I could resurrect it one last time.
I am open to all suggestions. If I don't makes some progress here, it could be a cold lonely Christmas.
Thanks in advance,
Jerry

 

[torturedmind]

maybe the hard drive is simply went dead - gave in due to its old age and shutdown during read/write. if you have access to another hard drive, try replacing it and see what happens.

hope this helps. peace!

kilroy
philippines

"If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get one million miles to the gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside."

 

[dunnjt]

Thanks for you quick response. I did in fact try another hard drive but a friend and I disagreed on how to install it. I said we should just pull out the original hard drive that was the problem and plug in the other hard drive know to be good. He suggested (and won out) that we could just install another hard drive on the same cable as the original one without disconnecting the original one. I thought that the computer could "see" which hard drive was primary by its position on the cabe to the motherboard. we tried it his way and the response was the same. "Operating system could not be found".
Does it make any difference where the primary hard drive is installed on the cabe to the mother board?
Thank you for your help,
Jerry D.

 

[micker377]

The "good" drive should be on the end connector of the data cable. First, try it with the "good" drive alone (set the jumper as "master". Then, if that works, try connecting the "bad" drive on the other connector (set as "slave".

 

[dunnjt]

Micker-
Thank you. By setting the jumper to master, do you mean in the BIOS settings or is there an actual physical jumper to switch on the hard drive?

Thanks for being patient with my ignorance
jerry D.

 

[micker377]

On the back of the drive, you have a power socket and the data (big flat) cable. In between you have a double row of pins with a tiny plastic "jumper" on it. On top of the drive, you should find a chart showing the placement of the jumper.

 

[dunnjt]

Micker-
I will check out he jumpers on the HD. However, it will have to wait 'til tomorrow. Time for some ZZZZs.
Thank you,
Jerry D.

 

[TekTippy4U]

Can you boot to a Startup floppy and FDISK /MBR?
You realize you'll most likely need to reinstall the OS atleast...or are still trying to salvage data?
Have you tried a diff HDD? - to possibly isolate the prob to that?

TT4U

Notification:
These are just my thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions.
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[dunnjt]

TekTippy-
This computer won't boot from a rescue disk, a boot floppy, a boot CD. It is simply not seeing the Hard drive and I can't get a handle on why. Reinstalling the OS would not be a problem if the computer would see a hard drive onto which an OS could be installed.
I will try another hard drive later on today to see if the original hard drive is toast. Is there any other way to determine if the hard drive is totally impossible to ressurrect? Any help is much appreciated,
Thanks,
Jerry D.

 

[TekTippy4U]

gotcha;
I missed that....
"In the settings it just says "none" for the primary master hard drive. "
Do you have an "Auto" setting in the BIOS? - set the Primary Master as such - try 1 drive at a time (and if you hook up two - set them Auto as well)...it's important for the correct physical jumpers on the back of the drive/s be set correctly, as well as the BIOS 'seeing' the drive on POST (Power-On-Self-Test).

If you don't see the HDD recognized at POST, don't bother trying to boot all the way - it must 1st be seen by the BIOS.

If you have no 'Auto' or AutoDetect for the Primary/Secondary under the IDE config area in the BIOS - you must _make_ sure_ the parameters (as you said) are correct (CHS) and also any LBA settings. Documentation may be necessary (most likely) for older HDDs. I guess you lost the Orig settings when you replaced the CMOS battery - eh?

The BIOS may have an option to "Disable" Fastboot/Quickboot/SilentBoot - do this, so you can see the POST screen....and also try and hit the ESC key for startup messages while booting.

Set the BIOS to Boot from CDROM as 1st boot device (even a 7 yr old should do this) .
If booting from Floppy - set Floppy 1st, CDROM 2nd, HDD 3rd.

I wouldn't think it's a Hardware prob from the way you described that it just failed while shutting down improperly while scandisk-ing.

TT4U

Notification:
These are just my thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions.
Backup All Important Data/Docs

 

[dunnjt]

torturemind-tektipp-mikker
Thank you for your responses regarding this computer that will NOT recognize the hard drive. This is what I did tonight, following some of your suggestions.

I installed another hard drive from a computer that was working just fine, as the master.This was from a computer running Windows 98. It booted up fine. The machine recognized it in the Bios and all was well. I installed the original hard drive that could not be recognized as the slave. Set the jumpers properly. In fact tried just about every conceivable setting possible.

The computer just will not recognize the original hard drive. I entered appropriate BIOS settings for each drive. The settings "held" after restarting but the original drive, now the slave would not be recognized.

The CD drives work fine. The floppy works fine. The original hard drive still can't be seen by the computer.

I appreciate the help you folks have offered. Any more suggestions. Is there any test to tell if the Hard drive is totally lost? BTW - the cabling can't be the culprit 'cause when the same cable is used with the translpanted hard drive, everything is fine.

Any more suggestions before I.....

Thank you,
JerryD.

 

[TekTippy4U]

I say have some baseball practice with it even though it's winter where i'm at.

If you boot from 98 boot disk

http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

(write protect it once made) and set the BIOS floppy to boot first and choose Start Computer withOUT CDROM support.....you can then fdisk /mbr as I said earlier - and then if success - you can run Scandisk C: - see if she'll boot.
If so - boot to safe mode and scandisk again regularly
If not - same type DOS boot as before and SYS C:

could d/l the HDD manu Diagnostics Utility and run it from a floppy

TT4U

Notification:
These are just my thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions.
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[dunnjt]

Tektippy-

Using the floppy boot disk results in the same priblem. "Operating system can not be found". I have never seen a drive behave like this. It just won't boot up even with a boot disk.

Have Any other Ideas 'cause I sm out of them.

Thanks for your help,
Jerry D.

 

[TekTippy4U]

LOL
Look at my first line above - in the last post
....heck 7 yrs ain't too bad for a HDD, so might as well go shopping - they're cheap nowadays, but try to stay under the 137GB limit and get a slower older model if possible. If in the USA / Canada - I like Newgg.com to buy stuff from.

TT4U

Notification:
These are just my thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions.
Backup All Important Data/Docs