Computers

Error Loading Operating System

Here’s how to fix this error:

Today was my turn to see this (in)famous error message after Windows XP’s setup routine had finished copying the core files to the hard disk and initiated a reboot of the computer.

The Solution (I):
Go to the BIOS settings of your machine and change the translation method used to access the hard drive from the default setting “Auto” to “Large” (not LBA, not CHS!). Reboot and with some luck installation will pick up at the point where it aborted before. If it doesn’t continue with the second part of the installation, you have to start over and do a fresh install. Leave the BIOS setting at “Large” for that task!

Note: There really *are* cases where you *have* to do a fresh install after changing the BIOS setting to “Large”. However, it doesn’t hurt to first try whether XP will finish the previous install

Now the only thing I would really like to know is: Why is it, that just Microsoft’s operating systems seem to have this problem? Every Linux distribution I installed on the very same machine didn’t have any problems whatsoever with the “Auto” setting. And to be fair: nor has Windows 98

And I really wonder why it is so hard for Microsoft to post the actual fix on their support pages instead of the blah that’s written there.

The Solution (II)
As Diana found out, another cause for this problem may be that an ATA-66/100/133 drive is attached with an 40 pin cable instead of an 80 pin cable. I can’t verify this but consider it as enitrely possible for Microsoft to choke on that so I thought I’d put it up here.

Update I: On two of my test systems I was able to set the BIOS setting back to “Auto” after the installation of XP had finished. Your mileage may vary.

Update II: The system I had this problem with is a Pentium-IV 3,06 GHz with an Award BIOS 6.0 with any part of it hardly being any older than 18 months.

Update III: As I just found out some genius introduced a new way of setting the access mode in some BIOSes. Instead of allowing to set the access mode in the “STANDARD CMOS CONFIGURATION” screen, you have to use “IDE HDD AUTO DETECTION” instead. When the BIOS reports your drive there, you *don’t* press “Y” to accept but instead press “N”. You should then be able to chose whether to use “LBA” (don’t) or “LARGE” (yup) as the access mode for the particular drive.

Currently affected mainboards seem to be:

Elitegroup 651C-M
GigaByte GA-7VTXE

If you report more models with the same strange method of setting the access method, I’m going to list them here.

If you found this information helpful and if maybe it even saved you from weeks of frustrated trying, calling names and other savagery or in short: saved your valuable time then consider donating. Every amount is welcome and will help me to keep this site running. Thanks a lot!

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Computer viruses are 25 years old

The computer virus conception story begins in 1981, when a tech-savvy 9th grader named Richard Skrenta got an Apple II for Christmas. Over the following few months he began cooking up ways to trick his friends using the machine. "I had been playing jokes on schoolmates by altering copies of pirated games to self-destruct after a number of plays," Skrenta once told the tech news site Security Focus. "I'd give out a new game, they'd get hooked, but then the game would stop working with a snickering comment from me on the screen."

When his friends realized his tricky ways, they banned Skrenta from their machines. And that's when he had an epiphany: He could put his code on the school's computer, and rig it to copy itself onto floppy disks that students used on the system. Thus was born Elk Cloner, the world's first computer virus to spread in the wild. The virus didn't do much damage; it infected the Apple II's OS and copied itself to other floppies, and every so often would display a tittering message on the screen:

Elk Cloner: The program with a personality

It will get on all your disks
It will infiltrate your chips
Yes it's Cloner!

It will stick to you like glue
It will modify RAM too
Send in the Cloner!

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:29:09 PM permalink