Missing operating system?

Post by **Looneybomber** » Sun Feb 21, 2010 4:53 pm

Ok here's what happend. I had the computer on, watching a movie. It's plugged into a Cyberpower 1500VA UPS with AVR, which is supposed to take your input signal from the wall socket and clean it up; Reducing noise, making sure the output is at 120v and 60hz.http://www.tigerdirect.com/app...d=234

Anyway, I turn on my vacuum on a different socket, but still on the same circuit, and my computer shuts off. My LCD screen then goes to sleep, the plasma stays on, DVD player's fine, and the receiver stays on. The lights didn't even dim.Plasma's are finicky and do not like power modulations, so since it wasn't phased, I was pretty confused. Plus they're all plugged into my UPS...

Anyway, I turn on the computer, it goes through the BIOS stuff, went through the RAID stuff, goes to load window's and then says "missing operating system".I put in my install disk to do a repair and it can't do anything. I eventually saw an error being a corrupt boot manager.I try to do a restore and it can't find my restore point I created a couple weeks ago.

If I could find my vid camera, I could take video of the whole start up process, but this is whole "missing OS" thing is making me made I put my drives in a RAID0. Otherwise if the data was still good, I could pull all my movies off since I had yet to back them up.

Post by **MinisterofDOOM** » Sun Feb 21, 2010 9:50 pm

Windows install disk SHOULD be able to repair a bad boot manager. Have you attempted to use the repair feature on the install disk again since the boot manager error appeared? If not, give it a try.

Post by **Looneybomber** » Mon Feb 22, 2010 3:04 am

I used the repair function (which didn't work) and that's how I found the boot manager error.

I'll have to run it and take a video of it (which won't happen for days because of my schedule). It gave me some message about it being unable to repair anything, sending off info. That's when I took a look at the details and saw at the bottom that the boot manager test was the only one that failed.

Post by **AppleBonker** » Mon Feb 22, 2010 5:35 am

I don't toy with windows much anymore, so I can't be of much help there. I usually wipe clean and start new fairly often, so if this happened to me I would just format and start over.

Though, I don't know if the computer shutdown over a power fluctuation, or that the UPS couldn't keep up. What all do you have plugged into the UPS? Sounds like a plasma, computer with LCD screen, other A/V equipment and the A/V receiver? If so, between the plasma, A/V receiver and computer, you might be drawing too much current for the UPS to keep up. I've got a smaller UPS on my theater setup, and I can't plug the receiver into it as it'll shut down rapidly from drawing too much power (and my TV should draw less power than your plasma).

I'm not completely familiar with CyberPower's computer interface, but if it is anything like APC, you should be able to see how much current is being drawn (once you get the computer back up and running that is).

Post by **Looneybomber** » Mon Feb 22, 2010 9:38 am

Right now I am playing a disney movie with the DVD player, 54" plasma, and receiver...but I don't think its on the battery backup side. Currently I'm drawing 288w with a 900w capacity. At the time I was probably drawing around 4-500w with the stuff that was on.

As for over capacity, while cranking up the volume with a bright image on the screen and the computer on, I've had it reach nearly 1000w without it giving me an over capacity error.

While downloading, the computer usually draws 180-189w.

*edit*I do have an old EIDE drive I could install and load Win7 on. I could then see if the RAID is still functional as is stated during startup. If so I will pull all of my data off of it, undo the RAID and reload W7 on to one of my normal SATA drives.

I was disappointed with the RAID 0. I thought it would greatly increase speed, but during the windows performance test, my HDDs scored a 5.9 while everything else was around 7.2. It also takes, no lie 30-40sec for W7 home premium to load after doing the whole BIOS startup stuff.
Modified by Looneybomber at 3:08 PM 2/22/2010

Post by **Looneybomber** » Mon Feb 22, 2010 1:22 pm

LOL. Ok guys, after doing a lot of google searching and reading, I found my problem.

...I left a flash drive in a rear USB port.

The computer is up and running just fine now. I hope anyone else that has this problem checks for rogue flash drives in the back of their computer.

The problem with it suddenly shutting off when I turn on the vacuum, however, is still there.

Post by **AppleBonker** » Mon Feb 22, 2010 2:17 pm

My mistake. I forgot to ask if it was plugged into the battery or just the surge. I can't plug my receiver into the battery, just the surge side. My tv, HD-DVD, Blu-ray, cable box, 360 and maybe my original xbox (or the Wii) are all plugged into the battery. The HTPC and receiver are on surge only.

What drives do you have in Raid 0? I loved my raid when I was running two raptors on it. I've since made the switch to SSD and would highly recommend it if you are looking for hard drive speed. SSDs obviously get pricey for the capacity, but if you have another HD you can run that for storage. I'm hoping you have another data drive other than your array. I, personally, wouldn't trust Raid 0 for data integrity. I used my array for the OS and programs only...

Post by **Looneybomber** » Mon Feb 22, 2010 6:47 pm

Two, 1TB seagate 7200.11's or 12's. I just thought I would get a lot more performance with them in a RAID 0 and that's why I took the risk. However, I don't think it helped me at all, so now I have all the risk, but none of the speed.

That said, I have only ever had my computer setup with Win7 with the two drives in a RAID. When I had XP pro and a single drive it was nice and fast...but two different operating systems, so it's not exactly comparable.

I have my receiver (in 2.1 not 5.1. I don't have a suitable center right now), TV, HTPC and maybe LCD plugged into the battery side. I'm out of town right now, but when I get home again, I'll check.

Post by **AppleBonker** » Mon Feb 22, 2010 7:50 pm

Yeah, my receiver destroys the capacity of the battery on my UPS. But, you've got a beefier UPS on your theater setup. Mine was a hand-me-down from my PC when I upgraded. Maybe my receiver just draws that much more power?

On a side note, striping is getting pointless in my eyes. I'm running Vista (I know, I spend most of my time in Ubuntu, so I haven't upgraded to 7 yet) on two 30 gig OCZ vertex SSDs striped. I can't take advantage of TRIM, and the speed isn't honestly that much better than a single SSD (sure, it benchmarks better, but for normal usage the gain is minimal). Once I have the cash I'll probably grab the 160 gig X25-M intel for my laptop and move the 80 gig that's in there now to my desktop for my Windows drive. I still stick with my recommendation of SSD for an OS drive.

Post by **Looneybomber** » Tue Feb 23, 2010 5:19 am

Later on I may get an 80 or 160GB SSD, along with a 2TB drive. That'd put me at 4TB of storage and then my SSD for the OS and whatever game(s) I put on. But that won't be for a while and I may even forgo the 2TB drive and instead focus on building a home server for storage.

All in the far off future.

Post by **C-Kwik** » Wed Feb 24, 2010 7:38 pm

Looneybomber wrote:...I left a flash drive in a rear USB port.

LOL. Never ran into this problem, but anytime I notice the boot order in the bios, I turn off everything but the HDD if possible and/or prioritize my main HDD in the boot order. If I have any need to boot from anything else, its likely because I'm fixing something. In which case a trip to the bios screen is not a big deal.

Post by **szh** » Thu Feb 25, 2010 11:27 am

C-Kwik wrote:I notice the boot order in the bios, I turn off everything but the HDD if possible and/or prioritize my main HDD in the boot order. If I have any need to boot from anything else, its likely because I'm fixing something. In which case a trip to the bios screen is not a big deal.

That is my approach too.

Z

Post by **MinisterofDOOM** » Thu Feb 25, 2010 9:31 pm

I do the same thing. The only drive I want above the OS hard drive in the boot order is the floppy drive if there is one. Everything else is after or disabled.

Post by **C-Kwik** » Fri Feb 26, 2010 1:34 am

MinisterofDOOM wrote:floppy drive if there is one.

I swear I think I still have one in one of my PCs. I've never used it in that PC. Hell, I don't even have a floppy disk to put in it anymore.

Post by **MinisterofDOOM** » Fri Feb 26, 2010 7:19 am

Actually, I just had to go out and buy a USB floppy drive because the monolithic case my new computer uses doesn't have a 3.5 inch bay (!). I have an internal floppy drive, but I can't use it in my new machine.

Post by **szh** » Fri Feb 26, 2010 11:06 am

Many new motherboards don't even have a floppy controller and connector on board. Particularly from Intel boards.

Z

Post by **PoorManQ45** » Sat Feb 27, 2010 8:22 pm

That's because there is no point to having a floppy connector anymore.

If you need an F6 driver for your harddrive controller to be detected simply slipstream in a textmode driver using Nlite.

Otherwise both Vista and Windows 7 allow you to browse USB devices to load drivers

Post by **szh** » Sun Feb 28, 2010 11:08 am

PoorManQ45 wrote:That's because there is no point to having a floppy connector anymore.

Almost all (if not all) external USB floppies are 3.5" only. They do not read the 5.25" old standard.

I have a dual-format reader in my old PC - made by Teac. Normal height and it can read both 3.25" and 5.25" formats in two different slots (appears as two floppy drives A and B).

But it requires an internal floppy controller - with two floppy drive support. And, there are still some motherboards with floppy controllers and connectors available luckily - albeit with only single floppy drive support now. This means that I have to flip a jumper if I want to read 5.25" floppies with these new motherboards.

And, yes, I still have some old 5.25" floppies that I read for dumb things - old fonts, etc. Some day I will transfer them all onto a CD, I suppose. Too many to waste time on today though.

Z

Post by **chemao** » Mon May 24, 2010 9:59 pm

You probably have a USB hard drive plugged in. Go into the BIOS and change the boot order. If you're too lazy to do that, just unlug the USB hard drive, reboot, and plug it back in. If that's not the problem, it can be a PITA to fix this unless you're fairly technical. Oh, and RAID0 is useless in desktop computers. Contrary to popular belief, it will NOT speed up your system to any measurable degree, unless you're doing like.. video editting and stuff. You'd be better served to set them up in RAID1 for the redundancy.

Post by **Looneybomber** » Tue May 25, 2010 10:58 am

chemao wrote:You probably have a USB hard drive plugged in. Go into the BIOS and change the boot order. If you're too lazy to do that, just unlug the USB hard drive, reboot, and plug it back in. If that's not the problem, it can be a PITA to fix this unless you're fairly technical. Oh, and RAID0 is useless in desktop computers. Contrary to popular belief, it will NOT speed up your system to any measurable degree, unless you're doing like.. video editting and stuff. You'd be better served to set them up in RAID1 for the redundancy.

Way to keep bumping up old threads. What is this, number 20? Problem has long since been resolved, thanks.

Post by **chemao** » Tue May 25, 2010 1:51 pm

Hmm, February huh, it's all good. I didn't realize that this forum only averages a post per week

Post by **PoorManQ45** » Tue May 25, 2010 2:27 pm

chemao wrote:Hmm, February huh, it's all good. I didn't realize that this forum only averages a post per week

Yeah, this section is a little slow.

Not too many people come to a car forum for electronics advice.

It's unfortunately though as I like working with computers and audio equipment...

Post by **Looneybomber** » Tue May 25, 2010 7:20 pm

chemao wrote:Hmm, February huh, it's all good. I didn't realize that this forum only averages a post per week

Yeah, this is car forum so not a lot of people visit "no parking zones"...ok that was pretty bad.

PoorManQ45 wrote:It's unfortunately though as I like working with computers and audio equipment...

Yeah same here. That's why I have over 3k posts at AVS.
BTW, my new speaker kit (center channel) came in the mail, but no time to do anything with it, gotta finish my subwoofer. Picked up the stain and poly today.

Dang wife made me get the biggest center channel possible. 4, 7" woofers.

Post by **PoorManQ45** » Tue May 25, 2010 10:44 pm

Awesome center!

I stopped visiting AVS when the DIY section became a bit stagnant. I'll look at it every once in awhile, but it kind of sucks that threads that were created 2 years ago are still on the first page...

Oh, if you ever need URC software let me know. My installer account is still active and I can get it all

Missing operating system?

Missing operating system?

Re: Missing operating system? (Looneybomber)

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Re: Missing operating system? (AppleBonker)

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