No Operating System Found!!!

[gazduz]

Help me please!!
I tried upgrading the RAM of my pc tower(Windows XP)by inseting a 256M card. When I put the tower back together and turned it on, the BIOS setup happened, but after that I got an error response saying "No Operating System Found"
I then tried to connect the hard drive to another old tower and once again, the BIOS startup happened, and told me that Windows will start in 30 seconds. The counter counted down from 30sec to Zero sec and when it got to zero, absolutely nothing happened...ie it appears that this pc couldn't find an Operating System either.
Any ideas what went wrong...or what I might have done wrong...or even better, how I might be able to rectify the problem???
Thanks..Garry

[PrntRhd]

Gazduz,
You would want to remove the recently added RAM and test before doing anything drastic with the HDD, otherwise you complicate the issues you face. (Retrace what you did before the problem occurred).
You may have simply loosened a ribbon cable when adding the RAM, or the ribbon went bad. XP activation requires the majority of the hardware of the original PC to be there, if you change it enough you have to call Microsoft to reactivate, so swapping the HDD into another PC is not a recommended troubleshooting step.
I would try a different ribbon cable if reseating does not make the HDD work.

Other members may have some other ideas of where to go from here.

[justindeen]

Hi,
Have you tried putting the old RAM back into the original machine and booting?
Have you tried another IDE ribbon cable?
Have you tried booting to DOS to see if any wondows directories/files are missing?

Maybe try these (I'd love to know the outcome - I'm studying for my A+ exam)

Regards
Justindeen

[Sylvander]

XP will only work with the hardware that it found when it was installed.
Can't remember if it gives you 30 days before it refuses to work.

Except that Microsoft made arrangements that it would allow some freedom to change the hardware somewhat.
So XP is flexible regarding some hardware, but not other items, and I cannot remember where to find the details. Does anyone have a link to that?
It may be that it just won't accept a change of RAM.

So if you swap the HDD into a totally different combination of hardware [from that set to which it is matched], it will refuse to work!

[Quantax]

You can read more about this at www.michaelstevenstech.com.