I am getting this message on a Packard Bell 350. Thought the hard drive must be damaged, but, I have put the HD into another PC, reformatted it and re-installed Windows and it runs just fine in that PC. When I put it back into the Packard Bell I am still getting the "operating system not found" message. The BIOS is not picking up the HD either (Phoenix 4.0, release 6). I think the problem must therefore lay with the motherboard or BIOS? All cables appear OK and are firmly seated.
Any help would be very much appreciated.

Have you tried another IDE cable? Formating the drive in one computer does not always mean the other will see it properly. The CHS relationship must match on both computers properly in oreder to get the OS to boot. Try replacing the IDE cable first. Also, ensure that the drives Master/Slave jumpers are set correctly. Is there another device attached tot he chain or is it a stnad alone device. Have you tried attaching the drive tot he secondary channel yet to see if it is picked up there? Hope this helps.

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Thanks for the info.
Swapped IDE cables over (and channels) and changed jumpers on HD but no luck. Only a bare-bones system with a floppy, CD Rom, modem, soundcard, graphics card, 64mb ram, Celeron 333mhz CPU and 6.4 Fujitsu hard drive.
I have run the Fujitsu diagnostic tool FJDT on the drive (in the other PC)and it is OK.
This PC was infected with the W32/magistr@mm virus and I think there is a possibility it may have damaged the BIOS. The BIOS does not pick up the hard drive at all so I can't format and re-install Windows on that PC.
Do you think that if I flashed the BIOS it might help? However, I cannot seem to locate a file, on the net, to flash the Bios on this PC.

Finding a BIOS update may be a big chore for any Packard Bell since the company no longer exists. When you boot the computer, near the bottom of the screen you should see a alpha-numeric string. This is the BIOS ID string. Copy it down and let me know. If the board is an Intel with a Phoenix BIOS we might be able to find an upgrade. If it's a proprietary board, chances are pretty slim. Whatever the case, note the make of the BIOS (Phoenix, AMI, Award, etc...), the board model, which might be displayed near the top of the screen during bootup, and the BIOS ID string. Let us know.

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4S4EBOX1.11A.0005.P04.
Phoenix Bios 4.0 Release 6
Thanx.

It's definately a Intel motherboard. SE440BX. However, your board's closest ID match is 4S4EB0X1.86A.Yours is 4S4EBOX1.11A.0005.P04. I am not sure if the BIOS is an exact match, but here are a few links to help you id the board:

To match the BIOS ID with the Intel board, check here:
Intel-manufactured Motherboards - List of Flash BIOS Identifier Codes (http://support.intel.com/support/motherboards/bios.htm).

To help ID the board, check here: How to Identify Your Motherboard (http://support.intel.com/support/motherboards/identify.htm).

For information about the Intel SE440BX board, check here: <A HREF="http://support.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/se440bx/" TARGET=_blank>
Intel® SE440BX Motherboard</A>

Hope this helps. I cannot say for certain if the BIOS update provided by Intel is compatible with your board, but it certainly is a SE440BX board. I think the version of BIOS you have currently is just a bit older.

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Here is another link worth checking out. It have the BIOS download. Check the Readme and Release Notes first and check them against your BIOS.

SE440BX Downloads (http://appsr.intel.com/scripts-df/filter_results.asp?strOSs=10%2C38%2C23%2C24%2C14%2 C15&strTypes=BIO%2CDRV&ProductID=215&OSFullName=All+Operating+Systems&submit=Go%21)

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Thankyou very much for your help. Before I do this can I ask?
Do you think that the virus this machine contracted wiped out part of the BIOS (W32/magistr@mm) or has something else caused it not to show up the hard drive/operating system? Incidentally, this is not my machine but a friends! When will people learn to use a good up to date virus checker?
Regards,
teebeeuk.
ps. I have now registered at Bioscentral as well.

Oh yeah. Easily. According to Symantec (http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.magistr.24876@mm.html), the damage done by the virus does involve flashing the BIOS. This may very be the problem with your friends computer. The BIOS has been flashed and the damage done.It's supposed to overwrite the CMOS, but what exactly it overwrites I don't know. I would assume that it's overwrites it with one and zeros, thoughly corrupting it. It sounds like you got a little lucky in that it didn't do this. I would flash it with the Intel BIOS update myself. As it sits, the system is shot. Not the greatest advice, but then again, your choices are not many. Hope this helps.

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Hi Postcode,

Having trouble. I have downloaded and attempted to run the bios flash but am not able to do so. I have an error message stating "(H48):Invalid reserved string in flash image header" press return to continue "(H01):The flash data image read from disk was found to be not valid" continue "Flash update was unsuccessful".

Have you any suggestions?

Thanks,
teebeeuk.

It would lead me to believe that the BIOS on your friends motherboard has some proprietary code in it. If the BIOS cannot be flashed witht he BIOS provided by Intel, then that approach is a no-go. I'm going to do a little looking around on PB's support site. They may ahve some updates there, but not likely. I'll let you know what I find. Other than that there sin't much more you could do.

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Oh the power of the Internet. Found a page with some PB BIOS updates on it. Now we need to figure which one it yours. What I need is the EXACT model and the entire serial number from the system. This may or amy not ahve what your system needs. You never know though. Get me the information and I'll check it. Let me know.

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s/n: A522800624 Pulsar 350. I have also looked at the PB site but did not manage to locate a BIOS update! Must be going blind in my old age. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/wink.gif

I have now recovered from the blindness and discovered 2 Phoenix bios downloads 235 and 37. I have downloaded and will investigate.
Thanx.

I found this over at WimBios:

Try this process at your own risk.

1. Download the newest BIOS from the Intel site for your motherboard.
2. Put the downloaded Intel's flash BIOS on a bootable diskette. (see the text files in the zip-file on how to do it)
3. Go into the BIOS and enable the option 'Check for User Flash ROMS' (it's in SETUP)
4. Power down the computer
5. Set the BIOS Jumper on the motherboard to RECOVERY
6. Insert the bootable diskette you made in step 2 that contains the new BIOS
7. Turn on the computer
8. It'll now go through the recovery procedure and then load the new BIOS from the diskette.
9. After that the recovery procedure is completed, power down
10. Set the BIOS Jumper back to the normal mode
11. Power up

You should now have the new BIOS installed!

(Thanks to Anne Munson for sending me this info!)


Look throught he BIOS setup first to check for any kind of CMOs protect feature. Hope this helps.

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Well............I did all that and it updated the bios just fine. The bios is now picking up the hard drive, but it still isn't working. The drive just keeps spinning. I am booting with a W98 boot disk which tells me it can't find a valid fat or fat32 partition and tells me to run fdisk. I do that and it comes up with the message "no drives found". I have again taken the drive out of this PC and put it into another and it runs perfectly. I have now reformatted it and put it back but still it just spins. I think I really need to try another drive in the Packard Bell, but I haven't got a spare laying around!
Thanks anyway,
teebeeuk.

Try a new ribbon cable...also make sure that the cable is plugged in correctly (most can be plugged in only one way but sometimes......)

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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

Gun Control...hitting what you aim at!

Thanks MJC but I have already done that!

Hi,
I posted a reply an hour ago and it hasn't shown up so forgive me if it appears twice!
Yes, I have already replaced the cable with a brand new one to try to eliminate the problem!

Thanks anyway. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/frown.gif

Have you tried another drive in this PC?

If two drives do the same thing in this one, but work in a different machine I'd start thinking controller problems......

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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

Gun Control...hitting what you aim at!

Hi mjc,
Unfortunately I do not have a spare hard drive. I have been loathe to use my own hard drive in my friends machine in case any damage was done. I don't want 30 gig of data going up in smoke!
Anyway, in frustration I took his hard drive out again and put it into my PC last night, and guess what? Yes..it failed to run. There must be an intermittant problem with it, so I guess the only way to overcome the problem is to buy a new drive.
Regards,
teebeeuk. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/mad.gif

Well if it is now failing to run in your machine, I'd say yes, it has seen its last file, and is now time to become a paperweight....

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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

Gun Control...hitting what you aim at!

Thanks to all for your help. I have now got this PC running fine. I managed to finally be able to use the restore kit and the system is now OK.
Once again thanks for the help.

teebeeuk http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif