All Gone

[0degree]

I switched on my Dell laptop today and discovered an error message (right before win98 loads up) saying "Operating system not found." :([nbsp][nbsp]Everything has been deleted: All the files, OS files and the HD partitions.[nbsp][nbsp]The HD is completely empty and unformatted with no partitions defined.

There is no way I can "restore" my sytem to its original/previous state but can anyone tell me what might cause such a thing to happen?[nbsp][nbsp]Last time I was working on it (yesterday), I was working in Photoshop and accessed the net to send out my work over email.[nbsp][nbsp]Everything went smoothly with no problems.[nbsp][nbsp]Does anyone think a virus is what caused all this (mind you, I didn't have a virus scanner installed and I don't remember downloading anything on my last session.)

Tony.
- It's refreshing to see such a clean system...shame about the files though.

[tedloh]

Viruses are typically the cause of such problems - though not always.

If you haven't already reformatted the disk, and wish to recover data, I suggest you go look for a program called Tiramisu (I think it has a new name now but you should still be able to find it) - PowerQuest either owns this program or makes a similar one.
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Ted (Chief Do-It-All)
Got2Bet.com - The Net's Winner's Circle
http://www.got2bet.com
ted@tygresystems.com

[0degree]

PowerQuest makes Drive Image (I wonder if this is the one that was called Tiramisu?)

Thanks for reminding me about this program.[nbsp][nbsp]Hope it'll be able to fix the problem.

Tony.
- Would u like your Tiramisu on a plate or in your computer? :P
[This message has been edited by 0degree (edited 04-27-01@3:19 pm)]

[jimbo]

This happened to my Dimension Desktop after attempting to load an old video game.[nbsp][nbsp]The solution?[nbsp][nbsp]Kick it.[nbsp][nbsp]That's wha I did, no joke :).[nbsp][nbsp]I just kicked it.[nbsp][nbsp]Now all is normal, and has been ever since :D.

-jim

[Matt]

Sorry to hear the bad news.
I find that viruses are blamed for far more problems than they actually cause. If a virus IS the cause of your problems, than it is much more deadly than the average virus circulating these days and may be lodged in your boot sector... which means that reinstalling everything may not rid you of the problem. Such viruses typically activate at some later date than when your system is infected, so you not downloading anything the day before probably wouldn't really matter as the virus would have been around for a while before that.

A more likely scenario is that your hard drive crashed. New hard drives do occassionally crash and if you reformat the current hard drive and begin using it again, I'd be reluctant to keep critical info on it. If it's still under warranty, get it replaced. If the data's critical, maybe you can recover it yourself, but you would probably do better going with professional data recovery services.

Your BIOS should have an option to protect against viruses, which warns you when an attempt to alter the boot sector is made. If you aren't multi-booting your system, enable this after installing your favorite OS. Scan the hard drive for viruses and if you can't find any, I'd invest in a replacement hard drive.

Matt
- I feel your pain

[Dunx]

Matt speaks truth about viruses being too readily blamed - I have horrible memories of hours spent on the phone to Gateway tech support walking through reinstalling Windows on what turned out to be a broken motherboard. They'd blamed that one on a virus too, simply because the symptoms were a bit weird.

I lost a lot of my data then too, because although I had backed everything up prior to reinstalling the fault stopped the machine calculating checksums properly and every single backup zip file was corrupt.

Best of luck getting your system back on line.

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--
Dunx

[0degree]

Thanks for the help everyone.[nbsp][nbsp]I think it's time to replace this turtle with a new laptop (without win95/98/ME.)[nbsp][nbsp]This is a lesson to backup more consistantly/frequently.

If a virus IS the cause of your problems, than it is much more deadly than the average virus circulating these days and may be lodged in your boot sector... which means that reinstalling everything may not rid you of the problem
I can always run a virus scanner after formatting and installing the OS, and then reformat and reinstall.[nbsp][nbsp]

I agree, this could be a hardware problem and thus the role of this PC must be changed.

Tony.

[Tahna Los]

No Partitions defined, unformatted, OS is not loaded, etc.

Looks like a problem with your MBR on your HD.[nbsp][nbsp]Sometimes your MBR can simply kick the bucket without the need for a virus.

Still not too late.[nbsp][nbsp]Get that HD to a data recovery specialist ASAP.[nbsp][nbsp]Wouldn't trust doing this myself.

[tedloh]

I would agree with the virus as a convenient excuse by someone who doesn't know (like Dell and Compaq), but in my case I have seen it happen all too often - and in one instance this little tell-tale sign turned out to be Chernobyl, which cost more in damages than all the other viruses put together.

Now I doubt you have Chernobyl.[nbsp][nbsp]I haven't seen that one in years, though I think there are occasional sightings.

When your OS goes missing, it means something overwrote your boot sector, or perhaps damaged a byte or two.

These include:

Norton Utilities (and other similar things)
Partition Magic (PowerQuest, makers of Drive Image - how convenient!)
Other disk-type utilities.

Viruses are the most common - I assure you.[nbsp][nbsp]The only other thing that is realistic, other than a physically damaged first byte of the hard drive, is that somehow, someway, you managed to turn off the machine at the precise moment that Windows was writing to the boot sector.

Otherwise, you probably would have seen intermittent disk errors long ago.

By the way, the name of the other program - which is BETTER than Tiramisu in my experience - is Lost and Found.[nbsp][nbsp]I get this strange feeling PowerQuest owns that too, while Tiramisu was bought up perhaps by Ontrack.
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Ted (Chief Do-It-All)
Got2Bet.com - The Net's Winner's Circle
http://www.got2bet.com
ted@tygresystems.com
[This message has been edited by tedloh (edited 04-28-01@12:27 pm)]

[0degree]

After speaking with many and lots of fiddling around (and sacrificing the old data that was on the HD) I found out that the HD has become faulty.[nbsp][nbsp]I can't do much now but to replace it.[nbsp][nbsp]Since I am away from home and constantly in need of a PC, I was forced to buy a new one (guess I'm gonna end up with 2 laptops now) :(

Thanks again everyone.

Thunayan.

Tony.

P.S. I decided to throw away the old data because it was not that important anyway.[nbsp]