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?

me again.

Dh says is it correct that the best way to get the hard disk out is through the keyboard? If so, how do you get the keyboard off?

Nothing in docs about it. Am checking their website as we speak, seems a bit rubbish, you can't do a search or anything. DH is on the floor behind me, he's taken a screwdriver to the back.

You're such a star for helping me.

I did find a search facility on the Vaio website but a search of 'hard drive location' or 'where is hard drive' didn't seem technical enough!

Dh thinks he's found it, through the back in a hard casing. He's unscrewing the casing now...

Ok, he's got it out. It has now been reinserted....

(I feel like I am commentating on a surgeon conducting an operation )

Surgeon says his hand is shaking so he can't get the scalpel in screw in the hole...

Now he's dropped the screw on the floor. I'm sure this doesn't happen on ER you know..

George Clooney here has found the screw, but says he needs something to stop him shaking.

Ok Nurse Flowery had a bash, unsuccessfully. George Clooney has had a brain wave and come back with some tweezers as a precise operating tool....

Ok it's back in, we are a go.....We've switched it back on, are you holding your breath?

Well you can stop holding your breath, it didn't work. Still says no hard disk.

Oh dear flowery, sorry to hear of your computer trouble. Can't help I'm afraid - been over 10 years now since I was a trained laptop engineer (and even then it was on Toshiba's not Sony).

Is it under warranty - if so contact Sony again and get them to agree to take it back for repair/replacement. However you are likely to lose the data on the drive (I expect Sony may just replace the harddrive).

So if that data is irreplaceable, then contact local IT companies to see if they are able to get any life from the drive and give an estimate as to how much data may be recovered (plus of course the cost).

it is within warranty, I've only had it since June, but DH is frightened that if we send it off to Sony they'll not be bothered about being careful and will just put in a new hard drive and keep the old one, saying the data has been lost.

I think it's going to have to be a trip to somewhere that will recover it for me first. it's not actually as bad as I first thought, all my work emails are backed up on DH's Mac and lots of my files were migrated from an old laptop when I got this one, so they are still there. So it could actually be a lot worse. But it's pretty bad so i will be seeing if we can find someone to recover it.

Thank you so much for your help Marx, and everyone else too.

x post Nick, yes DH thinks the same as you about what will happen if it goes off to Sony.

Will be trying to find a good company that can recover stuff tomorrow. if anyone knows one somewhere in or near the City that they can recommend, I would be very grateful, DH will take it for me tomorrow.

Sorry Flowery, was not around last night.

Hope you find someone to help. I still think it is probably a hardware connection that is faulty rather than your hard disk. Get someone to have a good look at it and with a bit of luck they will be able to fix it.

If you send it to Sony, they will automatically replace the hard disk.

Do you have another laptop you can plug the disk into, to see if it works?

I had my Sony Vaio for 1 month when it froze and then wouldn't come back on. Sent it back to Sony just before Christmas and it arrived back yesterday, good as new with hardrive replaced. They sent a courier, it was packed properly by them and have to say was really impressed by service. If you do that don't say that you took out the hardrive as I was told that can cause you problems with the warranty. Good luck.

Sorry wasn't checking back.

Have tried the hard drive in another computer, it's not working, so it certainly seems to be the hard drive.

DH has taken it off today (the hard drive) to get one of those companies that retrieve data to try and get whatever we can from it. Sony are sending a box today for me to send off the laptop but they will just replace the hard drive, and apparently will only let us have the old one back to try and retrieve data if we pay for it.

So DH is taking the hard drive off to try and retrieve data first, as no point paying to get it back from Sony then find we can't get anything off it.

Thanks all.