RAID 0 System: "Missing Operating System" message at boot up? : HELP!!

Draeger · 7 Jul 2008 at 12:57

Hi,

A neighbour gave me his Dell Dimension 9200 to have a look at.

Upon booting up, it detects the 2 320Gb hard drives in RAID 0 as working normally, but after that a message pops up saying "Missing Operating System" and it goes no further.

Not having dealt with a Dimension 9200, I said I could remove the hard drives and back up his data, pictures, docs etc.

And then upon getting the PC home and starting on it, I discovered it had this RAID 0 array in it.

Never dealt with a RAID based PC before, so I'm kinda lost.

As far as the booting up problem goes, any ideas how to fix this "Missing Operating System"?. I've Googled it but there's not much info around relating to RAID systems displaying this message.

And then to Data recovery. I've used a few of my usual apps to attempt to recover the files, however I'm not really sure what drive out of the two I should be attempting to recover from?. So far, Restorer 2000 and Easeus can find the Documents folder with the important images in it and it appears to recover them all fine, but upon trying to open any of the JPEG files, 99% of them say they cannot be opened and are corrupt.

Any help or pointers appreciated.

Draeger · 7 Jul 2008 at 13:11

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.

Yeah, they are both Samsung Spinpoints - 320Gb each. Thats the only 2 drives in the system, aside from the optical drives.

I've got the boot order set to boot from the RAID array first, CD-ROM second.

Draeger · 7 Jul 2008 at 13:27

Cob said:
And you'll need to recover from both drives at the same time, as most files will be split between the two. How are you accessing the drives?

Ah, yeah - thought as much.

At first I was removing the drives and hooking them up via an external enclosure to my laptop, then running the recovery applications on the laptop and accessing the drives from there.

I've tried using a MiniPE bootdisc, but upon booting it asks me to press F6 if I need to install a third party RAID driver, but then goes on to ask me to insert a floppy when I choose that option. Trying to boot the MiniPE disc without pressing F6 results in a BSOD shortly after.

I am managing to use Prosoft Data Rescue in its "bootable" form but it lists both the Samsung drives after it scans for drives. I'm not sure how to recover from both drives ( at the same time? ).

Plus, when I set my destination drive as my spare 160Gb Maxtor hooked up in an external enclosure via USB to my neighbours PC, it gives the message "Cannot Mount Drive ( sdd1 ) ".

Draeger · 7 Jul 2008 at 13:39

Oh dear.

The Dell doesn't have a floppy drive. :eek:

As far as moving the drives over to an Intel based desktop, yeah, my own desktop system is pretty much the same spec as the neighbours Dell is, although mine doesn't run a RAID setup.

Draeger · 7 Jul 2008 at 15:41

You got the same "Missing Operating System" message m8?.

I've tried booting into safe mode on this Dell, but it seems to be no matter when I tap or hold F8 down upon switching it on, it doesn't boot into safe mode. I know some systems can be a bit fussy about exactly when you begin/end tapping or holding F8, so maybe I'm just not catching it at the right moment.

Draeger · 8 Jul 2008 at 09:41

Well, I've had to admit defeat on this one.

I managed to get Prosoft Data Rescue to recover files from the actual ill PC itself whilst both drives were connected to the RAID controller, but upon checking what I had recovered, almost all of the pictures are sort of "split in half" with the top half being fine but the bottom half being just a blurry mess of colours and jaggy graphics.

@Cob...You say I need to recover from "both drives at the same time".

Does that mean what I've already tried? - I.E. Whilst they are connected to the RAID controller or is there some sort of way I need to be recovering from the drives simultaneously whilst using the recovery software?. As I cant see an option in any of the data recovery apps I have to do that ( most let you specify 1 target drive to recover from and some sort of external or independant means/drive as the destination to recover to ).

Draeger · 12 Jul 2008 at 08:19

No m8, its Vista Home Premium it's running.

Anyhow, before I returned the PC to its owner, I tried a different approach.

Rather than attempt to recover the data using the methods already mentioned, I used a Vista Recovery Disc and selected the "Repair my Computer" option.

It ran through a couple of things then restarted. I tapped F8 and up came the Safe Mode menu. Started in Safe Mode and booted into Windows desktop.

I found all the files I needed to recover, plugged in an external USB hard drive and copied them across.

The owner was quite happy with that, thankfully.

Now when I restart the system, it doesn't give me the "Missing Operating System" message. It boots to the Welcome screen but when I click the logon icon for the owner, I get a message popping up saying "SLUI.exe : The application failed to initialise properly".

I think this is something to do with user account and Windows activation etc but so far I've not worked it out fully.