Help! Laptop has died!! E-System running Vista

cindyhove

My son's laptop - E-System 1201 running on Windows Vista has crashed. All we get is "operating system not found"
Can anyone help me resuscitate it? I don't have a disc to reboot it from.

davb

It doesn't sound too good - could be a corrupted operating system, or a failing hard drive.
Check first though if there are any usb devices plugged in, or cd's in the drive.

Is there any important data on there that isn't backed up?

Simon_B_2

The HDD failed in my OH's E-system machine last year as davb says is there anything of importance on there?

sharkie

i'd get puppy, the ubuntu bootable or windows pe - all bootable disks.

With these copy off all the data you want onto a usb disk. Only then try and fix it, but probably will need the cd you do not have

cindyhove

There isn't really anything drastic on there. I just want to get it up and running again. Can't afford to replace it!

cindyhove

sharkie wrote: »

i'd get puppy, the ubuntu bootable or windows pe - all bootable disks.

With these copy off all the data you want onto a usb disk. Only then try and fix it, but probably will need the cd you do not have

Whats puppy and the other things? Where do I get them?

Browntoa

sounds like the hard disk has failed

wrht checking that the drive is plugged in properly

see if yours looks like this

http://downloads.emachines.com/service_docs/M5000_HDD.pdf

slide it out and then back in

on some later machines there will be a cover underneath

http://www.insidemylaptop.com/images/Gateway-P-series/taking-apart-laptop-05.jpg

gonzo127

the operating system not found message is usually one of 3 things

massive curruption of the operating system
loose hard drive
or totally dead hard drive

first thing i would do is what Browntoa has suggested and try re-seating the hard drive incase it has just come loose

next i would try one of the bootable disks suggested - probably puppy linux as its a small download, basically puppy is a complete operating system which can be run from either USB stick or a CD and your systems ram, this does not make any changes to your hard drive but should allow you to access your hard drive - this will show you if its a currupt windows (allows access) or a dead hard drive (no access), and therefore back up and important files if its only a currupt windows install - http://puppylinux.org/main/Overview%20and%20Getting%20Started.htm

if its a dead hard drive, all is not lost (as far as costs go - if you have the windows disk as stated) as you can buy another hard drive for ~£30 for 160-250gb then you would just need to replace the old hard drive with the new one and reinstall windows on this new hard drive

Hammyman

Also clean the fluff out of the fan. BTW, it is nigh on impossible to find Windows drivers for this laptop. Its some obscure chipset whose manufacturer doesn't have drivers for on their website. I ended up downloading an app from DriversHQ to find them.