Help Me! intermittent "Operating System Not Found"

[jonpenn101]

Ok Guys this is a tough one. About 2 months ago i started getting the "operating system not found" message when trying to boot a laptop. So with the unit being under warranty i had the Hard drive replaced. It worked great for about 2 weeks then got the same message again. So callend in service guys again this time they replaced the Motherboard and tested the Hard drive just in case. It was fine for about 2 weeks again, then yet again the message started coming up again, i have since given the user another laptop from our stores at the school and taken it upon myslef to work out the cause of this intermittent error from hell. I cannot for the life of me work out what is wrong. If anyone has any ideas please share them with me! Cheers

[jsnetman]

If they have changed the mobo and disk then I can't think what else it could be, only thing it could be is a faulty batch of hard disks, or the particular user is getting reinfected with a virus that screws the boot sector or files.

[jonpenn101]

Dont think it's a virus thoroughly scanned it! not sure about a dodgy batch either we have had the laptop for about 2 years and the replacement was put in about a month ago?? confused!!

[NikChillin]

Is it a Dell?
We had issues with some laptops where Bios is reset when the battery power gets very low. This causes the ata setting to revert to the other setting (Can't remember what it is called!). That then causes the hard drive unreadable. Once re-set it is ok.

[notalot]

Would be the hard drive compatibility mode that NikChillin is talking about I think, we get it with some of the Dell PC’s that we have.

If its is the above then once it starts happening you wouldnt get the error untill you change it.