More often than not, this error pops up out of the blue no matter how well your computer was working yesterday. But what does it mean, and what does it take to get things going again?
The BIOS ( Basic Input / Ouput System ) is a very low level set of software that not only manages information between your computers hardware and operating system, but it also loads the operating system as your computer starts up. ‘No Operating System Found’ is the BIOS giving you a warning saying just that, it is unable to find and load the OS.
The first thing to check is that the hard drive in your computer is plugged in, both power and data cables, all the way. This is an easier task on a desktop than a laptop, but from my experience, I’ve never had a drive come disconnected unless I was messing with it first. They just don’t tend to come lose by themselves even on laptops that get bumped around a lot.
If you’ve checked the connections or have no reason to believe that they would have come lose then I’m afraid you have a hardware failure and more likely than not its your hard drive that has the issue. Unfortunately this error is too vague to determine what exactly is wrong with the drive, only that it is unreadable.
How to get your computer back up and running
Replacing your hard drive and installing a new operating system will have you back up and on the go, assuming there is no other hardware issues.
Of course the problem with that is… what about your data? If all your data is in the cloud or its all backed up on another drive or computer, you’re fine just copy over whatever you need to the new drive and you’ll be in business.
What if all my data is on that drive?
However, if your only copy of important files or pictures is on that drive, you’re going to want to get them back. The good news is that data recovery companies have higher recovery rates on this type of error. A hard drive suddenly not being recognized tends to come from logical or mechanical failure and if that’s the case then the platters, the discs where the data is kept, should be in good condition. It’s just a matter of getting the data off and saving it to a new drive.
