Oh help oh help 'Operating system not found' on Sony Vaio

[flowerybeanbag]

Good grief. Was typing away merrily when computer froze completely. Left for a few minutes, still nothing. Pressed Control Alt Delete, nothing happened.

So I held down the on off button to switch it off. It went off. I pressed it again to bring it back on and it said 'Operating System not found'. I did it again, turned it off and on again, same thing. I took out the battery pack for a few minutes and did it again, same thing.

There is nothing for me to press or click. If I press anything, the message just comes up again, I have a list of the same message now.

What on earth does this mean and what do I do? I tried googling it and came up with various forums where people ask about their computer problems but I didn't understand a single word they were saying.

Can anyone help me?

I think you are fucked tbh

Sounds terminal

did you have a backup?

Have you got your operating books handy for the computer. I seem to remember something like this happening to me and you need to get into system restore by pressing one of the F buttons at start up. If you have your book it should be under trouble shooting.

I don't know. DH is my techy person. I am clueless. I don't have disks with all my stuff saved on it or anything.

You know when you start it up it sometimes give you options across the bottom telling you to press F1 , 2 etc. you only have a certain amount of time to do it before it goes to the main screen. If you can see this then press one.

Ledodgy I have found my operating book thingy. There is stuff about system restore but none of the trouble shooting things say operating system not found so I'm scared to try any of the things they suggest in case you shouldn't do that if operating system not found iyswim?

it says about recovery discs and I don't know if I have those.

i don't really understand what it is saying about system recovery either. It says doing that will delete all the date on the hard disk.

It gives a Sony Vaio website, I'm going to look there.

x-post no that screen doesn't come up. I get the vaio logo then it goes to operating system not found. I'm going to check their website.

Well that was worse than useless. You can't search on the website support section, it only tells you how to recover and says for more detail see book.

Urgh i'm not sure then, maybe wait till your dh comes home? Good Luck!

I have a Sony Vaio. Is there anything I can do to help by using any of the menus once it's started?

I know nothing about computers so I feel your pain!

I take it that when you took the battery pack out you also took the power cable out?

First time I took the battery pack out I left it plugged it, because I am thick. However I then realised how daft I was being and did it again with both out.

Thank you BIWI. Trouble is I can't get to any menus. There's nothing for me to click.

I am going to have to wait until tonight and get DH to look, but it's not looking good, which will be a disaster, all my work stuff is on there.

Try turning it on and holding down F10 (or possibly F11) as the VAIO image appears. You have to hold it down for a while. Then go to system restore and 'restore from last good setting' or something similar.

operating system not found sounds like a disk failure - the operating system would be stored on the disk, and without it it can't boot (because basically it has no instructions).

Hi flowery, first thing to try is disconnecting from mains, removing battery, removing hard disk, checking the connectors carefully between the hard disk and the laptop (assume its a laptop) and put back in and see if that works.

What model do you have? I will see if I can help

Ooh thanks all. DH has phoned up the Sony helpline from work. I am unable to do it as I am still suffering from flu and unable to have a proper conversation with anyone.

They have given him some things to try, which I think he said involved pressing F10 a lot, so sounds like slug's option.

oneliein I will mention about the hard disk thing as well. It's a laptop and on the top left it says VGN-CR31S which i think is the model number. I think it's probably best to wait until Dh comes home with his list of what Sony said to try and I may come back then.

Thank you so much everyone.

googling it only brings up something in French - but the gist of it seems to be F10 is the way to go to restore the system.

Yes, but please don't set about restoring the system until you have tried the hard disk connection. This is often the fault.

Flowery, I will take a look at the model and look out for you online later.

PS - hope that does not mean I would have to chat with your DH online!!!!!!!! It would feel just WRONG!

Know what you mean!

I will make a note of that about not restoring until trying hard disk connection and make sure he knows that, and will be back later to either update or beg for help depending on how it goes!

OneLieIn are you about? DH is pressing F10 until his fingertip is blue to no avail. Any chance I could put him on for a quick word?

Bump. Something is happening, help help

Anyone there?

I'm going to put DH on, hang on a sec, thanks so much for responding

Had absolutely no luck in pressing the F10 key whilst booting up (as recommended by Sony technical support). We have, however, managed to access the setup utility. It is showing on the main menu that there is no hard disk drive. I assume therefore that our best bet is to contact an IT expert to see if he/she can check the connections on the hard drive and/or replace it?!