computer says no opertating system found, how to recover data if possible

[dominican2589]

On one of my computers, all of a sudden one day after shutting it off, the pc says that it cannot find an OS. Nothing I did would make it boot up again. So I put it in another computer to see if it would boot up but it didn't. I connected it to an external enclosure to see if I could see the files and windows installed the drivers but I could not actually see the drive. I also put the harddrive internally and again drivers installed but could not see it in my computer nor in disk management.

Is there something I can do that I have not tired yet to recover those files? What could have caused it to just do this all of a sudden?

 

[patonb]

try a linux livecd. Windows might have lost its marbles, but Linux sometimes can figure it out.

 

[HAVOC]

Here is a good linux to try. Very easy to get up and running.
Knoppix Linux

 

[oldskool]

try a linux livecd. Windows might have lost its marbles, but Linux sometimes can figure it out.

Good answer, that's what I was thinking too. But you would have to download the iso to another computer and burn it obviously. Do you have that capability, another computer to download the live cd iso and burn it ?

Well first off, do you know how to do that ? There is a link in one of the stickys on how to do it. If you would like help with that, just say so and someone will be glad to help, I'm sure.

 

[patonb]

Well, hes posting and trying the hd in other comps, so theres your vfirst answer

When in doubt...... Linux it out!

 

[oldskool]

Yes, but I had no way of knowing if that computer was at a friend's house or something. Like, go over at midnight and knock on the door, hey, I want to know if I can try something on your 'puter I try not to assume

 

[dominican2589]

thanks for the advice. I forgot to mention that I did try to mount it under Ubuntu that I have installed on another PC and Ubuntu saw the drive just like Windows but when I clicked to open it, it said it could not mount it

 

[carnageX]

Could try running a chkdsk /r on the drive.

 

[kmote]

thanks for the advice. I forgot to mention that I did try to mount it under Ubuntu that I have installed on another PC and Ubuntu saw the drive just like Windows but when I clicked to open it, it said it could not mount it

How did you try to mount it? Did you try fsck?