Today my laptop got a blue screen, which told me to retart my laptop.
I did, and when I restarted it told me
"Operating System not found"
What should I do to prevent this problem after I try to get another copy of Windows XP?

what were you doing when it initially happened?

You shouldn't need to get a new copy of Windows XP. If you actually have to reinstall, just use your Windows CD or the recovery CDs that came with your computer.

"Operating System not found" would be an error message from your BIOS, meaning it can't find the initial startup files for Windows. This could be caused by many things. Do you remember what the blue screen said? Or what you did (if anything) to initiate it?

If you have another computer on which you can burn CDs, I would recommend making a KNOPPIX CD, which is a fully functional CD version of Linux (a "Live CD"). Booting from this you can probably check that your hard drive data is intact and potentially retrieve files that you want to save.

Originally Posted by Link

You shouldn't need to get a new copy of Windows XP. If you actually have to reinstall, just use your Windows CD or the recovery CDs that came with your computer.

"Operating System not found" would be an error message from your BIOS, meaning it can't find the initial startup files for Windows. This could be caused by many things. Do you remember what the blue screen said? Or what you did (if anything) to initiate it?

If you have another computer on which you can burn CDs, I would recommend making a KNOPPIX CD, which is a fully functional CD version of Linux (a "Live CD"). Booting from this you can probably check that your hard drive data is intact and potentially retrieve files that you want to save.

you can allso use a windows 2000 or windows XP cd and boot from that.
dont use it to install but choose the "Recovery console" and do a check disk from there. you can allso re write your bootsector with fixboot. if this does not help you can use the Knoppix cd, but i would use ERD Commander witch contains a lot of backup and recover tools. you can allso put the harddrive into another computer and copy every think you need to the other system. if the harddrive gives errors on that other computer, (like not formatted) you can use "file scavenger" to recover the files. contact me if you need any help with ERD Commander or file scavenger.

Just install another copy of XP, all your files will remain on harddrive if you do not edit the partitions. The only harm that can be done by having multiple XPs is that your old copy won't work anymore - and since it doesn't already... ;p

AFTER you copied all those files which you really need, you better reïnstall whole the PC, windows XP.
It might prevent that this happens again, and all the cookies, little virusses, bugs and all that kind of crap which was still on your pc, will get deleted then.
It makes your laptop much faster again, and less buggy.

IF you reïnstall the pc by CD, first go to your BIOS screen (by pressing "del" when you start your laptop.)
Then go to "Advanced Bios Features"

"First Boot Device" That probably is "Hard Disk" then.
Before you reïnstall Windows XP, change it into "CD-ROM"
Then change "Second Boot Device" into "Hard Disk"

Why? Else, if it first searched the Hard Disk, it won't be able to find anything, so, the pc will stuck. You won't be able to do anything with the computer then.
Now, if you changed that, and you put the windows XP install thing into your CD player, it will find that, so your able to install Windows XP again.

After you installed Windows XP, you can change the things I said back again.
Which means:
First Boot Device into Hard Disk and Second Boot Device into whatever it was before you changed it.
Remember this:
Your boot system might be different than mine. If so, ask some computer pro to help you out. If you do not do this, your laptop will be screwed ;P

Edit:
If the things are set to what I said already, it should be fine, and you can just reinstall Windows XP

Originally Posted by Grytolle

Just install another copy of XP, all your files will remain on harddrive if you do not edit the partitions. The only harm that can be done by having multiple XPs is that your old copy won't work anymore - and since it doesn't already... ;p

And ofcourse, the lag it brings with it, the bugs it brings with it.

Veg... that was a great statement *aviods PA =P* Just... what do you mean with:

Originally Posted by vegito

nd ofcourse, the lag it brings with it, the bugs it brings with it.

?

Anyways he doesn't have to format or anything, if he can install proper antivirus, spyware-removers and stuff on his blank copy... Then when he is done with all this he can just deltree his old windowsfolder...right? ;o

He can't really delete it, I think...
you'll get lots of bugs in the newer XP version..
thats what I meant.. your pc will lag a lot.. thats my experience at least

If you follow piet's advise, just remember that Windows XP's command for fixing the boot sector is fixmbr instead of fixboot.

Originally Posted by n00b

Today my laptop got a blue screen, which told me to retart my laptop.

Can you remember what message was displayed on the screen? The first few lines would have had a bunch of letters and numbers, and some words in capitals with underscores_instead_of_spaces.
Failing that, can you remember what it was you were doing with your laptop just before the blue screen?

Back from a campout, thanks for the tips and such everyone.
@BoggyB: I cannot remember what was stated at the begining of the bluescreen, but directly before it popped up nothing. I was playing PS2 and came back to my laptop and saw a blue screen. Before I played PS2, I started a download on Emule, and then got on Firefox and went to J2O and Gaia Online.

Originally Posted by n00b

Today my laptop got a blue screen, which told me to retart my laptop.
I did, and when I restarted it told me
"Operating System not found"
What should I do to prevent this problem after I try to get another copy of Windows XP?

you should get a boot disk that drive scrubber on it so you can safely be sure whatever the problem was, it is gone, then install the OS.

because (unbeknownst to alot of people) formatting doesn't actually erase anything,. it can all still be recovered. all formatting does is set something up to be written over, with programs like drive scrubber and the like (i don't know the names of other progs like that.) it writes over everything then erases and repeats as many times as you tell it to. (7 being govt. level)