Missing operating system

dave1982

Hi every body i am having a problem with my old laptop

Thanks for reading

I let my daughter play these dress up games on the internet zinky i think its called.Soon after this on restarting the computer i got error message "windll is missing"
So i tried system restore but now i'm getting "missing operating system"

Can this be fixed?
Laptop is advent 7201 model number AL-096

Hope someone can help:(
Once again thanks

I have a winsows 7 install disk but dont know how to get it started cause its just a black screen now

woolymammoth

dave1982 wrote: »

I let my daughter play these dress up games on the internet zinky i think its called.Soon after this on restarting the computer i got error message "windll is missing"
So i tried system restore but now i'm getting "missing operating system"

Can this be fixed?
Laptop is advent 7201 model number AL-096

I have a winsows 7 install disk but dont know how to get it started cause its just a black screen now

well first things first, almost everything can be fixed! It's the way it's fixed might cause ya headaches!

Zwinky - http://www.dressupgirl.net/dressup/516/Zwinky-Games-To-Play.html, flash based, shouldn't have interfered with the rest of the computer at all, so there might be some other cause. Coincidence and all that!

Shut down the laptop completely, cut all power if you have to. remove any or all CDs, USB drives, anything that's connected at all. Turn it back on and watch everything that happens. Normally you'll see the advent or whatever BIOS screen first, then it would go black and windows will begin to load up. Write back and tell us what it did and didn't do! Details are important.

dave1982

Thanks for your reply.Ok i turned it i got the advent logo with option of setup or muliti boot and straight away black screen displying missing operating system_

woolymammoth

it would appear, from what you're saying, that some data on the hard disk could have become corrupt. It could be worse. Literally :eek:

There's a few things you can check for, like seeing that the disk is still physically connected, that it's getting power. If both of those are OK, you should check that the computer can actually see the disk. You do this in the BIOS (setup on the Advent BIOS screen). You'll see a whole lot of info, take your time to read what you're seeing. If you're not sure, look for the boot order menu, your hard disk should be listed if the PC can see it. When you're in here, make sure you move the CD drive to boot before the hard disk (hdd). That way if nothing is working for you, you can boot CDs.

You can also attempt to boot into safe mode (unlikely to work, but you should try). To do that, keep tapping the F8 key immediately after the Advent BIOS screen. Under normal circumstances, you'll see additional boot options. Try for safe mode only. You can also try Use Last Known Good Configuration, see if it helps.

now, you said you have a Windows 7 disc, but is it Windows 7 installed on the PC? If it is, you should be able to do a repair/upgrade, if it isn't, you might still be able to do a repair/upgrade. This will reset a lot of things on the PC but should leave your files, profiles intact. Programs might have to be reinstalled.

You can opt to fully reinstall, but i would recommend backing up any/all data, and Drivers for your computer. You can download what's called Live CDs that load a temporary operating system of a CD (eg UBCD4WIN), with it you can browse the hard disk and get data off. Finally, if you get to that stage, and you cannot see any of your files or the hard disk, the whole thing could be corrupt and you will either have to bring it to someone to recover the data, or bite the bullet and do a fresh install, formatting the disk and recreating the partitions. Additionally, you may not have even got this far if the thing was just dead from the beginning. Recovery is possible from a specialist, but prohibitively expensive.

now, that'll be €413.28!:pac: