Operating system not found, setup detects no drive, drive is visible in ubuntu

[HMCTech]

Have a sony laptop which BSOD when starting windows. Recovery mode cannot see any hard drives but if I boot into a live CD I can see the drive/system reserved with all the folders. Sony recovery cannot detect a hard drive to restore to factory settings and windows setup cannot see any drives either to reinstall.

 

Anyone got any tips on fixing this or getting the hard drive seen by windows again?

[markcuk]

Sound like the mbr is corrupt try this How to use the Bootrec.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment to troubleshoot and repair startup issues in Windows

[HMCTech]

Unfortunately cant fix an mbr of a OS that cant be found. /ScanOs finds 0 partitions

[markcuk]

have you tried it from a windows cd or you can put into another machine and do it

 

try also to set the sata to IDE in the bios

 

found this should be the same for win7

 

1.Put the Windows Vista installation disc in the disc drive, and then start the computer.

2.Press a key when you are prompted.

3.Select a language, a time, a currency, a keyboard or an input method, and then click Next.

4.Click Repair your computer.

5.Click the operating system that you want to repair, and then click Next. (if no Vista operating system is listed, click Next anyway)

6.In the System Recovery Options dialog box, click Command Prompt.

 

Next:

 

At the command prompt, type diskpart.

This will get you to the DiskPart prompt, which allows you to use a variety of hard disk partitioning and formatting tools similar to FDISK in older versions of Windows.

 

At the DiskPart prompt, type select disk # where the # sign is the number of the hard disk drive with Vista installed on it. If your Vista drive is the only hard drive in your computer, it is Disk 0.

 

Select the partition by typing select partition # where the # sign is the partition that has Vista installed on it.

 

Type active and press ENTER. The Vista partition is now active. Finally, type 'exit' to close DiskPart. Reboot the computer using the Vista dvd and follow steps 1-6 above. You can now repair the Vista boot:

 

Fix the Master Boot Record: (commands)

 

bootrec /fixmbr

bootrec /rebuildbcd

bootrec /fixboot

Edited December 10, 2011 by markcuk

[HMCTech]

No the drive doesnt even come up in diskpart. But still comes up in ubuntu live disc

[markcuk]

try gparted

 

 

 

How to use the free GParted CD to mark a Linux or Windows Primary partition Active.

 

Download the lasest stable release of GParted

and create the Live CD from the ISO file.

Boot from the Linux Live CD and complete the three user-input requests.

GParted will run automatically.

Right-click the Primary partition you wish to make Active

and select Manage Flags.

In Manage Flags on ..., tick (to enable) the boot check box to make the partition Active.

Click Close and exit the partition utility.

Restart your computer.

[glennda]

Is it a sony vaio with a raid 0 config?