Sometimes when reinstalling operating system Windows or when migrating from more new system on the old one, an error occurs: " An operating system wasn't found. Try disconnecting any drivers that don't contain an operating system". Also, this error may occur due to improper intervention in the hidden boot partition hard drive. In this guide, you can learn how to fix the "An operating system wasn't found" error.
In Windows 7, 8 or 10, the system boots from a hidden partition (reserved by the system). Each of these operating systems hidden section has a different size: in Windows 7 - 100 MB, in Windows 8 - 350 MB, in Windows 10 - 500 MB.
When installing the system, you probably could see these sections.
The hidden section contains the operating system boot files. If for some reason this section becomes inactive, then the operating system will not boot accordingly and you will see the error "An operating system wasn't found". Try disconnecting any drivers that don"t contain an operating system".
To fix this problem, all you need to do is make section active.
A hidden partition must always be primary and active. This is an iron rule, thanks to which the BIOS understands that the download files are located on the specified partition. Let's take a look at what is stored on this hidden partition as an experiment. First, let's go to Disk Management,
Since I'm using Windows 7, you can see that I have 100 MB System Reserved. If you assign a letter to this hidden partition, it will be displayed in the "Computer" window, provided that the item "display hidden protected system files" is activated in the system settings.
As you can see, this disk contains OS boot files.
Below we will consider two ways by which the error will go away and the system will boot up normally again. By the way, all manipulations can be carried out both on Windows 7 and on Windows 8 and Windows 10.
Method 1. How to make a partition active using Acronis Disk Director
First you need to create boot disk Acronis Disk Director if not present. The image can be downloaded on the Internet, and then burned to disk. If you do not know how to do this, you can read the article. Next, boot from this media.The hidden section must always be active, as I wrote above, that is, in the program it must be marked with a red flag. As you can see below, the hidden section is inactive,
Fix it - click right click click on the section and click on the item "Mark as active",
For the changes to take effect, click on the button with the "Apply pending operations" checkbox.
After the operation is completed, you can see that the partition has become active.
Now it remains to restart the computer. If everything is done correctly, the system will boot up and you will be taken to your usual desktop.
Method 2. How to make a partition active using the Windows installation disc
If there is no disk with Acronis Disk Director at hand, then do not despair. You can do without this program, however installation disk with the operating system, we still need it. Boot from it by pressing any key on the keyboard,Instruction
You need to open the start menu. Open "My Computer". In the left column, select "View system information" and in the "Hardware" tab, select "Device Manager". You will see a menu containing all installed devices. Next, select "Disk Drives", right-click on non-hard and open the "Properties" menu. In the "Device Status" section, you will need to activate your hard drive. It is possible that the hard drive is activated, but cannot continue to work due to outdated drivers. In this case, select "Update driver" in the hard drive options. The Hardware Update Wizard will open in front of you, in which you can choose whether to download the driver from the Internet or use the disk that came with the operating system for this.
If the hard drive still does not appear, open the Start menu, select Control Panel, open Administrative Tools from the menu that opens, then select Disk Management from the Computer Management tab. Right-click on a drive that is not displayed, select "Properties", in the "Hardware" menu that opens, then "Use device" and "Enable". In the same section, you can rename the drive, specify a different path to it, format or delete the logical drive.
If the drive is on but not showing up, go to the BIOS menu. The Basic Input Output System (BIOS) is stored in a small flash memory chip on motherboard. During startup on the motherboard, it executes a BIOS program to initially check and initialize the hardware, after which it transfers control to the operating system.
To enter the program when you turn on the computer, press the DEL key, and a menu will open in front of you. Navigation in the program is carried out using the arrows and the Ent and Esc keys. Open the MAIN menu (or Standard CMOS Setup, depending on the version of the program), open the Secondary Ide Slave submenu, select a non-activated hard drive and turn it on. To exit the BIOS and save the settings, press the F10 key, or select the "Save & Exit Setup" main menu item. For a return default settings select Load File-Safe Defaults.
In the event that the disk is not displayed after the above steps, you need to check the correct installation (whether the 40-pin ribbon cable is connected to the IDE cable) and perform the steps again.
Sources:
- how to turn on hard drive
There are situations when the operating system is installed on a logical drive. In order for it to work and boot normally, you need to convert this logical drive to the main one. It's just that the operating system cannot always boot from a logical disk. There are also cases when several operating systems are installed on a computer, and they are installed on different logical drives. Then, to start the selected operating system, you need to change the logical disk to the main one.
You will need
- Computer, Norton PartitionMagic program, Internet access
Instruction
You will need Norton PartitionMagic to convert the partition. Download the most latest version program, as it has more features, and install on your computer.
Run the program. After launching it, carefully study the interface. In the right window of the program, partitions of the computer's hard disk will be displayed. When you click on the hard drive icon, information about the type of that partition will appear.
You can also create a backup partition using this program. To do this, in the "Select tasks" window, click on the "Create backup partition" command. A dialog box will appear. Read the introductory information and click Next. In the next window, you do not need to change the settings, the program will automatically select all the parameters. Just click next. A dialog box will open with hard disk partitions. Select from which partition the memory for the reservation will be used. Next, select the amount of memory for the backup partition and its file system. Finally, click "Finish".
Now select the logical partition you want to convert to primary. Then, in the Partition Operations window, select Convert Partition. In the window that appears, check the "Primary Partition" item. It can also be marked automatically. Then click OK. The process of converting the hard disk partition you selected will start. But it still needs to be activated. To do this, in the "Pending Operations" window, double-click the right mouse button on the transformation operation. Then click Apply.
The computer will restart. Wait for the operating system to fully load. The logical drive you selected has now been converted to Primary.
note
Please note - when converting a logical drive to primary, there is always a risk of losing boot files systems. Therefore, it is recommended to create a backup partition on the disk, from which information will be restored if necessary.
When buying a new hard drive or changing the settings of an old one, sometimes you need to perform operations that allow its partitions to become active. Otherwise, you risk losing access to the operating system.
You will need
- - installation Windows disk or LiveCD.
Instruction
First, try making the hard disk partition active using the operating system's capabilities. This method has been tested on Windows XP and Vista operating systems, but it is also applicable to Windows system seven. Open the Start menu and select Run.
Enter the command compmgmt.msc in the field that appears. Click the OK button. Find the sub-item "Storage Devices" in the "Computer Management" menu and go to it. Select "Disk Management".
Select the hard disk partition (or entire disk) that you want to make active. In the right column of this window, select the "Make section active" item. In the case of Windows 7, this item will be located in the All Tasks menu. Click the OK button.
In the event that you cannot access the operating system, use the command line to restore the active partition. Run the installation disk Windows Vista(Seven) or LiveCD for Windows XP. Enable Support command line and run it.
Type the diskpart command and press the Enter key. Now type the list disk command, then press the Enter key. A list of hard drives will appear in the working window, which will be numbered. Select the section you want to make active.
To do this, enter the select disk 0 or 1 command, depending on the disk number. Now enter the list partition command to list the existing partitions given hard disk.
Select the desired partition by issuing the select partition 1 or 2 command. To make this partition active, enter the active command. If you did everything correctly, then after pressing the Enter key, the following message should appear: "The partition is marked as active." Restart your computer to check if the OS is working.
Crashes in work hard disk may cause the operating system to stop loading correctly. Sometimes hard drive problems are the cause of a severe decrease in computer performance. Proper manipulation of disk partitions allows you to correct the failures that have occurred in a timely manner.
On computers with x86 family processors, the MBR partition can be marked as active via the Diskpart command line utility. This means that the computer will start booting from this partition. You cannot mark dynamic disk volumes as active. When you convert a basic disk with an active partition to a dynamic disk, the partition automatically becomes a simple active volume.
To make a partition active, complete the following procedure.
- Start DiskPart by typing diskpart on the command line.
- Select the drive containing the partition you want to make active, like this: DISKPART> select disk 0
- List the disk partitions with the command list partition.
- Select the required section: DISKPART> select partition 0
- Make the selected partition active by entering the command active.
Changing Disk Type in DiskPart
Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 supports basic and dynamic disks. Sometimes it becomes necessary to convert a disk from one type to another, and Windows provides the means to accomplish this task. When you convert a basic disk to dynamic, partitions are automatically converted to volumes of the appropriate type. However, do inverse transformation volumes to partitions of a basic disk just can't be done. First you need to delete the volumes of a dynamic disk and only then convert it back to basic. Removing volumes will result in the loss of all information on the disk.
Converting a basic disk to dynamic is an elementary process, but it imposes some limitations. Before starting this operation, take into account the following considerations.
- Dynamic disks work only on computers running Windows control 2000, Windows XP, or Windows Server 2003. Therefore, if the drive to be converted contains older Windows versions, you will not be able to download these versions after conversion.
- Disks with MBR partitions must have at least 1 MB free space at the end of the disk. Otherwise, the conversion will not be performed. The Disk Management console and DiskPart reserve this space automatically; however, when using other disk utilities, you must take care of the availability of this free space yourself.
- Disks with GPT partitions must have contiguous, recognized data partitions. If the GPT disk contains partitions that are not recognized by Windows, such as those created by another operating system, you will not be able to convert the disk to dynamic.
In addition to the above, the following is true for any type of disk:
- you cannot convert disks with sectors larger than 512 bytes. If larger sectors are used, the disk must be reformatted;
- dynamic disks cannot be created on portable computers or removable media. In this case, disks can only be basic with primary partitions;
- you cannot perform disk conversion if the system or boot partition is part of a mirrored, striped, striped, or RAID-5 volume. First you must undo overlapping, mirroring, or striping;
- however, you can convert disks with other types of partitions that are included in mirrored, striped/striped, and RAID-5 volumes. These volumes become dynamic of the same type and you must convert all disks in the set.
Converting a Basic Disk to Dynamic in DiskPart
Converting a basic disk to dynamic is performed in the following sequence.
- Start DiskPart by typing diskpart on the command line.
- Select the drive to be converted, for example: DISKPART> select disk 0
- Convert the disk by entering the command convert dynamic.
It happens that a certain section of the hard disk needs to be made active or vice versa inactive. For example, the user has a new HDD Or a new partition has been created on it. And it happens that, due to lack of experience, they did the wrong thing. This article will show you how to carry out these operations.
The Windows bootloader is installed on the active partition of the disk, which starts loading the operating system. If you activate the wrong partition, then the operating system simply will not start. Therefore, more experienced users should penetrate these bowels.
Activating a hard disk partition can be done in several ways. This article will look at two of them. First, let's look at activating the partition through the Disk Management menu.
The first way to activate a hard disk partition
To start, press the key combination "Win + R". In the window that appears, enter the command "diskmgmt.msc" and click "OK".
Section window will appear hard drives. Select the desired section, right-click on it and select "Make section active".
Voila! The section is active.
The second way to activate a hard disk partition
The second way to activate a hard disk partition is through the command line. You must run the command prompt with administrator rights. Click "Start", in the line "Run" enter "cmd". Right-click on the command prompt shortcut and select "Run as administrator". On the command line, we will run the built-in "Disk part" utility. To do this, we will write several commands in the already running command line. Let's start with the "diskpart" command and press "Enter". The line "DISKPART>" will appear.
To select the disk we need, enter the command "sel disk #". Instead of #, we indicate the serial number of the disk we need and we see that the disk we need is selected.
Then we need to select the section to be activated. We display a list of partitions with the “list part” command and, similarly to the selection of disks, select a partition with the “sel part” command.
Now all we need is to give the command "active" and the partition will be activated.
To deactivate desired section hard disk through the command line, you will need to do the same manipulations, with the exception of the last command. Instead of "active" we prescribe "inactive".
Deactivating a partition through Disk Management is possible only after formatting the partition. And this is not always desirable.
The active partition of the hard disk is responsible for the location Windows bootloader. Performing the operation of selecting an active partition requires sufficient computer knowledge and cannot be recommended to inexperienced users for security reasons.
Instruction
You will need
- Acronis Disk Director Suite software.
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