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Operating System Not Found

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3 replies

by riern

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Hello there,I recently installed Linux Ubuntu on WindowsVista Home Ed. using the Wubi Installer. As far as I know my HD was not partitioned. Everything was working fine until I started updating some programs that came with Ubuntu, which led me to restart my notebook pc. This is where the problem arose. The first few seconds of the reboot are quite normal until I get the following error message(s):
PXE-E61: Media Test Failure
PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM
Operating System Not Found.

Seeing as my laptop isn't really kitted out enough to run Vista,I tried to install XP. Everything went according to plan until the installer requests to proceed with the installation. It then says the HD cannot be found which brings me back to square one. I've tried changing the boot order to boot from the CDROM but to no avail. My notebook specs are 1.5GHz Celeron,766MB SDRAM,128MB VGA Memory,Standard DVD-CD-R ROM and NO floppy drive. I've got some pretty important stuff on my HD and am hoping somebody will be able to help me. Looking forward to any reply and would be very grateful,cheers!

3 replies

by oh smeg

It has a SATA HDD which isn't supported Natively by XP. You need to install the Driver for the SATA Drive.
Because you don't have a Floppy you are unable to use the XP Standard method to install the SATA Driver which is to copy the SATA Driver to the Root of a Floppy and then Press F6 when the first blue screen appears and wait till you are asked to supply the SCSI Driver. Here you need to push the SATA Driver on the Floppy into the A Drive and press enter.

As you don't have a Floppy you need to Slipstream your Own XP Install CD by following the directions here

http://tinyurl.com/326fg3

or here

http://tinyurl.com/2ehzk3

While neither of these as written to include SATA Drivers the procedure is exactly the same as Adding SP2 which is what they where originally written to help people with.

Of you can use the Software Approach and use nLite to do the same thing.

http://tinyurl.com/e2mo4

OH also use a Wiping Utility on the HDD to get rid of the Linux Partitions as every Linux installs 3 Partitions by default. Something like Boot & Nuke is available that can make a Bootable CD.

http://tinyurl.com/4rfur

Col

by Former member

Written your hdd with the Unbuntu disk, if possible get another hdd and install this in your laptop. If the info is really important the you will need someone to extract the data either through software or hardware or both.
Very expensive process. If you can put your old hdd into a external usb/firewire case then you might have the possiblity to do it your self when you load on your operating system on to the new hdd (make sure you load on the updates). When loaded (your new drive in your laptop and your old drive is in the external case) then you might see your old drive in "my computer" icon under drive letter "D" (depending on your laptop layout).
If you have no floppy drive then get a external usb one.
I hope this helps you.

Please post back if you have more problems or questions.

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