"Missing operating system" on boot up...

Hey guys, I've been working with this PC for a few months now no problems. But i just got home from a LAN that i went to and when i tried to boot for the first time i got a "Missing operating system error".

The first thing i figured was that i must have knocked a drive unplugged during the transport of my PC. I opened the pc up but couldnt find anything wrong. I also noticed something else...usually when i start up it will show a quick splash screen of my hard drives that i have connected...now it just says it cant detect any. The weird thing is when i go into BIOS they are still listed under the SATA devices.

Any tips? Im hoping this is just an easy fix and i didnt physically damage anything while carrying around my PC

Here are some specs:

Windows Vista Ultimate

Asus Maximus Formula

2 x 150 GB Western Digital Raptors in RAID 0

UPDATE: I tried using the repair function on the Windows disc. I couldn't find my operation system on the list of OS's to repair, even after loading the drivers i used to set up the raid. So i just hit next and tried the "Startup Repair" function anyway. It worked for around 15 minutes before saying it could not repair the operating system.

It is possible that you changed sata configuration before first Vista install and your bios reset 2 default. try 2 change sata settings in bios. that a first think i do.

Hi guys,

I know I'm a bit late to this discussion but I just ran into this problem myself. My problem was caused by something which wasn't listed in the discussion yet.

It all started within Windows... I was installing a developer version of the SQL server from a external USB drive. And when the installation was over it wanted me to restart the computer, so I did, only to see the "Missing operating system" message on bootup... Panic!

Of course my first reaction was panic... Where's my operating system?! So I quickly popped the Win7 RC disc into the dvd drive, hoping it could repair the problem. But when the repair tool booted, the OS list was empty. "Hmm, that's odd" I thought... So started my laptop and browsed the internet for a solution and I found this discussion. After a few seconds I realized the cause... It was the newly plugged in USB drive.

First, being lazy, I thought I could just alter the bootup devices and sequence in the bios. But to my surprise that didn't help so I had to unplug the drive completely, but when I did, the OS came right back up. Phew!

Hope this helps if somebody else get caught of guard by this problem.

Kind regards,
Johannes

i have the same problem but when i put my vista cd in it doesn't say fix or anything just load. And when i do load it after it's done the screen just goes black.... help

btw... the name isn't towards you guys it's towards the forced registration process topost.