Ah yes...after hours of figuring out first how to get my two Raptor WD 36.7GB HD's to even be rcognized by windows XP pro installation....now I am faced with...

"Error Loading Operating Syatem"

I have been messing around with the bios. even tried re-installing windows XP and repairing it and still no help...

What gives my friends? any advice?? I have been looking at multiple solutiosn on multiple websites tonight and still no luck.

I have...
GA-K8NNXP-940 (Gigabyte Motherboard)
AMD Athlon FX-51
ATI 9800 Pro
2X512 Corsair memory
52X32X52 Sony CD-RW
Floppy Drive

I know you guys know the solution to this Ive seen you all respond to things much less techincal than this. Unless I'm a fool and this is more complex than thought. Hell, Ive been working on computers since before Windows even came out(3.1) and I was only 7.

Thats all it says, "Error loading operating system"
Cut N pasted from $upport.micro$oft.com
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;326676...duct=winxp


SYMPTOMS
When you restart your computer after the file-copy portion of Windows XP Setup, you may receive the following error message:

Error loading operating system
CAUSE
This issue may occur if your computer BIOS does not correctly manage or support the capacity of the hard disk on which you are installing Windows XP.
RESOLUTION
Warning This article contains steps that may involve changing your BIOS or complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) settings or that may require you to make physical changes to your computer hardware. Incorrect changes to the BIOS of your computer may create serious problems. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems that result from changes to your BIOS can be resolved. Change your BIOS settings at your own risk. If you need help with any of these steps, contact your hardware manufacturer and note that making either hardware or BIOS changes to your computer may invalidate your warranty. If you do not want to make hardware changes to your computer, you can take your computer to a repair center.

To resolve this issue, use one of the following methods:
Make sure that you are using the latest BIOS revision for your computer. Contact the computer manufacturer to inquire about how to obtain and install the latest BIOS update that is available for the computer.
If you are using an IBM computer with an AWARD BIOS version 4.5x, visit the following IBM Web site:
http://www.storage.ibm.com/hdd/support/bios338gb.htm

I have been having almost the same problem... I left my computer on all night one day because i was downloading a movie and when i got up the next morning my computer was acting really weird. it was almost froze it was moving so slow so i had to shut it off manually. when i turned it back on it gave me thats**t that there was an error loading the operating system. i hope i can find a solution because i have soo muchs**t on there it would kill me to lose it. i have made no hardware ajustments. i have no clue what the hell happend to it over night

Tyler were you downloading the movie from a p2p site? I would suspect you also downloaded a boot sector virus, from the sound of it. Have you run spyware virus scans?

As Payton suggested Tyler, you probably have a boot sector virus. Go into the BIOS and enable the Virus Warning to make sure. If you have a boot virus you may want to read this page on how to get rid of them:
http://antivirus.about.com/library/blboot.htm

yeh maybe so. im at school right now ill check when i get home....i was downloading my movie from suprnova.org. i usually dont have ne problem with them becuase they usually post the files that have viruses. so why didnt mcafee pick it up??

it no longer says error loading operating system but shows a blank screen. if i put in the boot disk i made it says like invalid boot.ini file and says booting from c: .then says missing the "hal.dll" file. i cant boot from my other hdd either becuase i just use it for storage.

perhaps im getting this error becuase something went wrong with my changed bootscreen???it worked fine before. god i get in such p**sy moods whenever i cant use my own computer. it sucks ass!!!!!

That's fixable. Follow the instructions for rebuilding your boot file with the XP CD

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;330184...duct=winxp

Also go to the system restore tab in system properties and turn off, then turn back on your system restore files. This perges all your restore points, where a virus may be hiding, and creates a new one. Make sure your preferences on your anti virus is set to include boot files when it scans.

suprnova. Is that the bit torrent type site. How do you like that? Does it work well?

hey thanks alot payton........lol if it doesnt work ill be back.

yeh suprnova.org is i think the best bittorrent site out there. it has tons of stuff...anything ...its great

I have just bought a barebones kit from tigerdirect.com that included a case a Soyo Dragon ATX motherboard P4 2.8 GHz processor and a 512 MB RAM stick.

After putting my dvd burner, floppy drive, vid card from my old computer into this one along with my 20GB HDD that had originally and an 80 gb HDD that I had installed after owning the older computer.

Getting to the point... after throwing my components into the new case I get some errors and do my best to work around them. I throw the needed stuff back into the old comp to reformat the 20 GB HDD and installed XP into it. Now I get a "error loading operating system". I dont have the other HDD hooked up as of right now just to save from the computer not knowing which to look at but since this is my first time putting parts of a computer together in this manner (I've never dealt with working from scratch just adding stuff to an already working comp) I dont know if I have the dvd burner and floppy hooked up right but I'm pretty sure I do because the motherboard does recognize them on the initial screen that I'm getting tired of seeing . Does anyone have any GOOD ideas that should work out? Any good ideas are much appreciated.

Did you load the XP onto the Hard drive in the old case, and then switched it over to the new system? If that's it, it usually won't work, because the XP loads the default drivers for the system as it's set up, and will not be the right ones for the newer one.

I did load it up on my old computer. Should I get back into my old computer and completly format it? And if so... do I make a partition for the c drive or leave straight out clean. Thanks again for any help.

Put the hard drive you want the XP on in the new computer with the jumper set to master, at the end of the cable, and remove the other. Set the boot order to CDROM CDROM CDROM. Boot from the XP CD When it says press any key do it. The CD will download the files. Do you want a new install, hit enter.. When it ask if you want it installed on the C partition follow the instructions to DELETE the partition. When you are done it will say Do you want to install to the unpartitioned space? Say yes. Format with the NTFS file. NOT the quick one. Once the partition is created the OS will install. It will reboot a few times during the install where it will prompt you to "hit any key to boot from CD". Don't hit any. Just let it install. When the install is finished, reset the boot order to Floppy Hard Disk CDROM. Set the jumper oon the other hard drive to slave and attach it to the mid cable connector. Make sure the disks are recognized in the bios. Start up the computer and make sure it's working, then shut down and install any extra CD DVD Roms or PCI cards.

Make sure your boot order is set to SCSI.

Make sure your boot order is set to SCSI.

Why would he want that if he isn't using an scsi drive?

In response to what Payton Chacalos wrote... thank you very much and I will try that today and let you know how it works.

After doing what you said I get a disk read error after it rebots the first time during isntallation and after it says to push any key to boot from cd and I dont press anything. If I take the HDD off of CS and put it to master it doesnt read the HDD. Only on CS and that's when I get the error. Any ideas?

That sounds like you have a bios problem. Have you tried to clear the CMOS with the jumper and reset the BIOS to optimal or fail-safe default? And can that other hard drive create the same problem if you use it to try loading the OS?

I wouldn't know how to reest the BIOS but I'll check it out.

there is a 3 pin connector near the flat battery on the motherboard. It should say CMOS Jumper or something like that. It has a jumper on it that shorts out pins 1 and 2. You have to remove it and set it to short pins 2 and 3 for about 30 seconds (do this while the power supply is unplugged), then move it back to pins 1 and 2. Turn on the computer and start tapping on the delete key till a blue screen comes up. It should have a setting that says Load optimal defaults. Highlight that with the arrow keys on the keyboard and hit enter. Then hit F10 You will get a message that says Do you want to save to the cmos and exit. Hit Y then enter. The PC will reboot and you can start the installation again. When you set the bios it changed your boot order, so go back in and change it to CDROM CDROM CDROM again to start the install from the CD

I tried doing format c: /s which I read to try to do to load things from the boot floppy but I got a general failure reading hard drive. Sounds like there is just something not right with the hard drive itself. Anyone agree? If I were to buy a new one that's only like 20GB or so I could just load windows onto it easily... whats the best kind of HDD to get without getting pricy? EIDE? SCSI? Any input would be great.