Greetings Richard & List--
-----------Responses are interspersed----------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Hallett" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>

[material deleted for brevity]
>
> The error message is "no operating system"
>

When I have received this message on several of the computers under
my care, the cause has been one of two things.
   Possibility 1): Someone has gone into CMOS ("Press DEL to enter Setup"
   is displayed on the screen when starting the computer--inexperienced user
   obliges) and changed the primary drive settings to one of the
included--but
   incorrect for the installed drive--settings, saved it, and restarted the
machine.
     Fix (if this is the case): Use the Autodetect IDE Hard Disk Utility to
properly
                                         set the drive configuration.
   Possibility 2): The Master Boot Record (mbr) has become corrupted.
     Fix: Boot from a startup disk, type fdisk /mbr at the A:>\.

> I thought I would be able to access the drive by first putting in another
> hard drive.  I put the new hard drive in with ME (English version)on it
and
> it ran fine by itself but as soon as I put the damaged drive back in it as
> slave I got the message again (no operating system) and could not boot.

All I can think of that may have caused this phenomenon was not having
the drive jumpers set correctly.  While cable select is still sometimes used
to designate master and slave hard disks, this has become less common
than the use of jumpers shorting the appropriate pins.

>
> I used the fdisk command to find out if there were partitions.  Best I can
> tell it was one large partition with one active but no fat system could be
> identified. I assumed that since it was dated this year that it would be
> formatted as using the whole disk and would be set up in FAT 32.  Since it
> was ME an NT format or file system was out of the question....  With the
> type of hardware present on the machine that seemed appropriate for an
> overseas "office machine" could you install ME on top of an NT format?
>
>

As to this last, I think there would be some indication that the drive was
formatted NTFS.  Just the fact that ME was installed and running indicates
to me that the drive was more than likely formatted FAT32.

HTH and good luck,

Paul A. Shippert     Library/Media Specialist
 Margaret Brent Middle School
Phone: 301-884-4635         FAX: 301-884-8937
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"and I'm hovering like a fly
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