Operating system not found

[David12228]

I posted the following on October 18th:—

I have used this laptop for 4 years, I'd like to say without a problem, but cannot. However, the latest 'issue' is that when booting up I get a black screen warning, "No operating system found... " (Or words to that effect.) The first time it occurred I simply rebooted and it worked normally. Next time I booted I had the same problem, this time I had to power off and on several times, but eventually it booted up. I check this forum and found a suggestion, Do a hard reset. That worked, once. Did the reset again next time. It took several attempts, but eventually did work.

WAWood, Expert and Provost responded:

I am really surprised that the laptop continues to work at all -- especially considering that you have done reset after reset.

Why?

Because each one of those stresses the drive to completely reset the PC,

Unfortunately I accepted this as the answer, but on reflection realized that WAWood did not know what I meant by "hard reset". In doing the "hard reset" I was following the HP trouble shooting advice which is:—

Remove all USB devices: remove battery: hold down the power switch for 20 seconds to drain any residual power. 

Since this is done when the laptop is powered down the drive cannot be "stressed" because the machine as not yet started to boot up.

Any other opinions/suggestions much appreciated.

David

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi, David:

The only suggestion I can offer, would be to reinstall W7.

If you don't have a recovery disk but you can read all 25 characters of the W7 Home Premium product key on your PC's case you can make your own W7 installation media from the link below.   The 64 bit file is near the bottom of the page.

https://getintopc.com/softwares/operating-systems/windows-7-home-premium-free-download-iso-32-bit-64...

I have zipped up and attached the Microsoft utility that you can use to transfer the ISO file to a DVD or USB flash drive so that it is bootable.

After W7 installs you can install the drivers and available software from your notebook's support page.

[David12228]

Thanks for your response, but... Isn't there always a but? This laptop should have come with Win 8.1 x 64, but when I ordered it I specified Win 7, a better OS, and an SSD, and 16Gb of RAM, and 4 Gb of VRAM, but if I search for drivers I get Win 8 versions. I do have another SSD, 500Gb, which has Win 7 x 64 already installed, I could swap the drives, but then I'd have to install all the software. Doable, but my wife is in hospital so I was looking for a quick fix to keep it going for a month or so until she gets home.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

If there is no W7 product key on the PC's case, and came with W8.1 Pro with downgrade rights to W7 Pro, you can make W8.1.Pro installation media and there should be a W8.1 Pro product key in the BIOS.

You can download the W8.1 Pro ISO file from the link below and use the tool that I had previously zipped up and attached below to transfer the ISO file to a DVD so that it is bootable.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows8ISO

[David12228]

Thanks for that info, but I really would not want to downgrade to Win 8, ever. What I might do is go to Win 10, but with the medical problems I'm dealing with this wouldn't be a good time to do it.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

Then your only other option would be to buy the applicable recovery kit from this non-HP vendor, since HP no longer sells recovery media for that model series anymore.

http://www.computersurgeons.com/search.aspx?searchterm=15t-j100+

[David12228]

Thanks again. I've decided that I'm going to have to keep the laptop running at least until the medical issues with my wife are resolved, with luck another 4 weeks, I hope. Then, since I'm going to have to switch to Win 10 Pro in the not too distant future I'll get the full edition and start clean.

David