You had installed Linux and now you want to go back to Windows Vista / XP / 2000. But all you get is an “Error Loading Operating System” after the first part of the Windows installer has finished transferring files? Here’s how to fix this error:
Solution 1:
Go to the BIOS settings of your computer. 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.
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Hey Pez, hell yeah, I am using ASUS A8N5X. And I got the same problem as you do too. But after I changed the “Auto” to “Large”, the “error loading operating system” thingy didn’t show up anymore. However, I still cannot pass to get to Windows.
Help is needed over here.
I purchased a brand new Seagate ST3400620AS recently, and had no trouble setting it up in my computer as a secondary hard-drive used for storage. The new HD is a Sata, my old (boot drive) is an ATA 100.
After it was set up, I encountered the familiar quirk that Windows would not recognize the extra capacity of my new hard-drive. I ran Seagate’s Disc Wizard program again, and it stated that it had detected that my new hard-drive was not setup to utilize all of its available capacity above 137 Gigs, and that would I like to let it make a registry change and reset the computer, after which the OS (win XP, w/ Svc Pack 1) would correctly recognize the amount of space? I clicked ‘OK’, and then upon restart it gave me the infamous
“error loading OS”
error.
I went into CMOS and set the Access type for my new drive from “Auto” to “large”, but that did nothing. Setting it to “LBA” also did nothing.
I’m about to disconnect my HD and see if my computer will restart without the new drive connected. Then I’m going to see if I can find the registry change it made, and undo it, then reconnect my drive.
In the mean-time, can anyone else here give me a possible solution to this problem?
In continuation of my previous post–
Disconnecting the new SATA drive did not anything- the computer still hangs on bootup, only this without displaying the “error loading OS” message.
I went into CMOS and made sure the Access type for the old, boot (ATA) drive was back to “Auto”. I had set it to LBA or LARGE or something else while messing with the same setting for the SATA drive, and returning it to Auto let my computer boot up in Windows XP (w/ Svc Pack 1) again.
Seagate’s Disc Wizard program showed up again, offering to allow me to set up the SATA drive (which was disconnected).
I did some research on the registry change I thought the Seagate program made- EnableBigLba, which “Enables 48-bit LBA Support for Large Hard Drives”. I found it using regedit and set it back to ’0′ to disable it, and am going to reconnect the SATA and leave it be at 137 if it works. I believe this to be the only thing that caused the “error Loading OS” message.
Hey im having the same problem but i have a Compaq6037 computer and i can access my bios but i can only change things from enable to disable(or visa versa)and cant find a way to access IDE HDD auto detection, if you could give me some help it would be greatly appreciated. thanks.
Hi,
Have same problem (Error loading operating system) with an asrock mobo (P4i64G) can only find the option saying LBA/LARGE enable or disable, not LBA or LARGE! Also dont know where to look for the points raised in update III. Right now im building a mates rig and its making me look like a plum! Ive never come across this problem before and ive done quite a few now,
Please Help me!
Regards.
As stated on page 28 in the manual for the – hopefully – P4i65G, you seem to be right in that you can either disable or enable LBA/Large mode. This would mean to either disable it, try an install and enable LBA/Large mode afterwards or to use the “Type” setting directly above to force a translation of virtual into physical sectors that most closely uses the space your disk provides. Sorry to say that but the BIOS of that particular mobo seems to be totally messed up. Since you didn’t say anything about the actual hard disk configuration (ATA or SATA, how many drives of each and so on) it’s very hard for me to guess where the source of the problem could be.
An update:
With the SATA disconnected and the original boot drive set to Access Default “Auto”, WinXP loaded as normal (albeit a tad slow). I entered, and before I did anything else, entered the registry and set enablebiglba back to 0, disabling it.
Then I ran the Seagate Disc Wizard again and had it prep the computer for adding the new ST3400620AS. It did so, and after it my shut my computer down, I reattached the SATA cables, and turned on the computer once more.
This time, it hung on the “error loading OS”, again.
So, I went back into the CMOS, enabled RAID, because with it disabled, I couldn’t get into my OS, and even with the SATA disconnected, I couldn’t get in my OS, so I had to find a way to get the computer to ignore the new SATA drive so I could get back into the OS, and did this by making it thing it had nothing to do with other IDE drive anymore (IE now it’s part of a RAID array).
Enabling RAID let windows start up with just the original boot drive (ATA 100), and asked for RAID installation drivers, which I ignored. I reset again, and went into CMOS, and set the RAID settings to include SATA/PATA up to 6 IDES, and reset. No “error loading OS” message, but no detection of the new drive. I reset again, change the RAID to AHCI, which has something to do with PCI. No change- at this point I was just messing with random stuff, never a good idea.
Then, I reset again, went into CMOS and changed the RAID/AHCI setting back to the original way it was: “Disabled”. I made all the other CMOS settings the way they were when I had originally set up the SATA drive and it had installed fine, just with limited capacity of only up to 137 Gigs.
The computer then booted up the way it had the first time after I’d installed the drive- booting up from my old IDE ATA/100 drive, and with the new, SATA drive connected just as a SATA (no RAID Array, no AHCI/PCI stuff). Unfortunately, I can still only access 137 Gigs of space on it.
I can’t enable the “enablebigLBA” setting under HKEY\Local Machine\CurrentControlSet\Services\etc….\Atapi\
because that will cause the OS to hang on the “error loading OS” message, and then I will have to hop-skotch from SATA Disabled to RAID to AHCI back to Disabled, while disconnecting and reconnecting the SATA drive in between resets, just to get back to where I am now.
I don’t pretend to understand the underlying causes of the effects I observed from my changes to the CMOS. I am merely recording what I did, in my own personal case, being that the whole “set access default” for the drive to either “lba” or “large” had entirely NO effect on the situation whatsoever, so that anyone else in my situation can try to re-enact my steps to get back to Square 1, AKA Normal, if this message has halted their boot-sequence.
You are correct its a P4i65G, hes using two 200Gb seagate barracuda’s (master slave) both are PATA IDE drives. First try was with LBA/Large enabled this cause the Error loading operating system message on reboot, when LBA/Large is disabled the core files are copied over and the comp reboots but then hangs where the error loading operating system was before.
Regards.
Okay, I tried this with my computer, but I just can’t get it to work for me. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong/not doing that is keeping it from working.
Motherboard
ECS NF650iSLIT-A with Award BIOS 6.0
Processor
Pentium 4 3.0 GHz
Operating System
Windows XP Pro
Okay, I’ve tried to go past this problem for wks now!!!And the most anoying thing is that,stuffs like Large/LBA or auto options aren’t in there(setup utility)! ofcouse the age of my board accounts 4 that.Any idea where to get equivalent options or go about it? pliZ HELP.
Motherboard: ibm
Sys board identifier:RBCMS0ICO4T
Model: 6578TBG
Processor: P3,speed 667/133mhz
OS: W2k pro
Bios date: 07/27/2001
Martin: – 2007-04-22 – 03:30
This is the only place i could find an answer that helped me! thanks for that but now i have come across another problem. my computer seems to wait for something to happen after all the visible BIOS checks when it would normally say Error loading operating system. But it does something even weirder if i leave the CD in and let it start up nromally. After the 5 full stop blips for “Press and key to boot from CD” 3 characters appear on my screen with either a turqoise background, a yellow background or a clue background, one character is a box and one is a hash, the other one seems to be a space. This is all on top of the BIOS checks and one of them is flashing suggesting its not a system hang. Confusing or what? unless anyone knows of something that would cause this then im gonna call it quits and replace parts to find which is the faulty component.
Extra Info:
AMD
Asus A8N-Sli Premium mobo
2x 1024 OCZ RAM
Nvidia Geforce GTX
Didnt fill in the full system info before so here it is, sorry for double post.
AMD X2 4200+
Asus A8N-SLI Premium
2×1024 OCZ DDRAM
Nvidia Geforce 7900 GTO 512
no add-in cards.
I have a Sony Vaio Notebook and I’m sure from looking up you get hundreds of requests for help but I am at a loss as to what I can do. I’ve contacted Sony and attempted to contact Microsoft but thus far have been unsuccessful. If you would be able to offer me any direction it’d be greatly appreciated as this computer is only about 2 months old.
Model: PCG-42H2L
OS: Windows XP Professional
VGN – TX850P (it’s on the inside upon opening the screen and I can’t even find it on their website)
Intel Centrino
80Gb Harddrive
1GB RAM
Motherboard: Not a clue
Can’t even access bios it loads with the VAIO and Intel Centrino logos and goes immediately there after to the message “error loading operating system”
I don’t have XP CD the computer was purchased as a gift and I only have what I was given. Is there anything else I can do other than contacting either the manufacturer or Microsoft?
Michael,
Not owning a Vaio myself, I can only relate what I hear/read: To get to the BIOS setup of the Vaio, simply press [Esc] multiple times while the Vaio logo is shown when booting up the machine. You should then be presented with a dialogue which should contain a “BIOS Setup” option.
i changed the bos to large and it worked it loaded xp again but after the whole installation was ver i tried to get back the settings to be “Auto” and rebooted then it showed the “error loading OS” thing so the pc runs on large and its extremely slow with many crushes.
any help will be great thanx
….Thank you so much for the idea. I changed my settings to LBA (large didn’t work) and that got rid of the “error loading os” problem after about 3 weeks of frustration. Now I have to find a way to get my sound back for my cd rom and get my modem working again…haha. My cd plays sound such as that when windows is coming on, it just won’t play sound when I play a cd, which it did before in Win Me. It recognizes it, but just won’t play the sound. I put in a new WD 80gb hard drive and installed Win2000 Pro and now the cd won’t work right and the modem doesn’t work. Any ideas? I will definitely try to send a donation to you.
AMD-K6-2/500
Award Modular 4.51G
Biostar M5SAA mb
SIS 530-2A5IMB09C-00
Flashed Bios 7/27/2000
384mb memory
Any chance you accidentally disconnected the cable leading from the CD Rom drive to the sound card while installing the new hard drive?
…Yes, I checked that and it’s alright. It seems Win2000 trashed my sound and modem drivers or sumpn’.
The changing from auto to large was great i checked a few websites with no luck then came across yours thanx this problem was drivin me nuts.
Thanks Stefan!! Been struggling with this issue for weeks now, but after discovering this site, problem solved!
Hi Stefan,
I’d be very grateful if you could put me in the right direction:
My computer was working fine with windows XP installed for over a year.
One day when I was copying files from a DVD, the machine suddenly crashed/restarted.
The message “Error Loading Operating System” then appears.
Changing any of the harddisk or other bios settings doesn’t solve the problem.
Will Fixmbr fix this problem? Any other ideas?
Bear in mind that I’ve plenty of important files and programs on the hard disk that I hope not to lose.
Thanks very much.
I have a gateway notebook NX500S model and I don’t know how to change the BIOS settings can you help me
This error occur 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 ”
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
The correct and effecient resolution is to change change the translation method used to access the hard drive from the default setting “Auto” to “Large” (not LBA, not CHS!)
To enter setup for gateway notebook NX500S model press F2 while the machine is starting up & for more details go to URL:
http://support.gateway.com/s/Mobile/Gateway/M280/1008547faq14.shtml
RE – my above message
Note that windows XP had been installed fine for over a year. I was copying music files over from a DVD (not windows) and the computer just crashed.
Now I get the error message upon startup,
do you know what I can do to fix the problem?
Ive already tried changing the hard drive settings in BIOS as indicated.
Thanks again,
Eoin
Help.. I read all the threads but can’t seem to find solution.
I have P4 40g h/d, ECS motherboard p4s5a/dx+, with amibios simple setup utility-version 1.21.12
Got error loading o/s message. looked in bios, went to standard cmos setup. went to primary master. located LBA mode. Only option is turning it on or off. Thought about using this suggestion:
Use the “IDE HDD AUTO DETECTION” feature of your BIOS. When the BIOS reports the drive you just hit “No” instead of “Yes” and you should be prompted whether to use “LBA” (don’t!) or “LARGE” (that’s the one!) mode to access your drive.
Closest option for this suggestion is F3: detect all HDD
It detected the HD, but didn’t give me the yes no option.
What do I do next.
Prefect solution one worked for me too!!!
Thanks a lot for the solution.
You saved my day ;)
Maybe you can help me too. I have a 2005 Fujitsu Lifebook Notebook model S2020 running an Athlon XP-M. The drive listed in BIOS is MHT2060AH. I used the factory restore disks to reload Windows XP which appeared to load successfully, but upon reboot i get this now famous “Error Loading Operating System” message just after the Fujitsu screen appears.
I’ve only seen fujitsu mentioned in message #124 above and didnt see a solution. At startup I have time to hit f12 and get to Bios screen but the BIOS options are different. I dont see a option to change the translation method used to access the hard drive from the default setting “Auto” to “Large” . I also searched for your Option 3 “IDE HDD AUTO DETECTION” instead but cant find it either. My only IDE options are “Disable, Primary, Secondary, Both” and im set to “Both”.
Please help. :)
same question as no.429
please help..
I wrote you earlier and you helped me some what the only thing is I do have the option to change any thing in my main BIOS settings except the time and date so I don’t know what to do
I had this problem when building a PC for a client. An update of the BIOS *AND* a reinstall of Windows fixed it. I couldn’t continue the old install routine.
ASUS P5BMX / WiFi-AP
Now running BIOS 0501
I hope you can help me as well! I have a Sony Vaio TR1AP laptop and I als get “error loading operating system” message; I read your postings looking for an answer but no luck. The problem is that when you get into BIOS utility on the laptop (to do so, I press F2 or ESC when the logo comes on during the bootup) I can change there only a few things (system date, password and LCD screen expansion). How can I change my bios with these limitations? thanks in advance, Marcin.
How do you get to the BIOS setup?
I own a Dell Dimension 2400 Series.
Hi, getting same error but not when trying to install winxp on machine. any ideas? machine has been slow bringing up internet explorer windows for past week. took like 20 mins for windows to come up. has happened before. Left machine alone for week without turning it on and it just started working. not sure what to do. will your solution fix this issue? going to try anyways but any other ideas?
For me the disk just needed to be formatted as FAT32. =:-/
Just wanted to thank Stefan for posting this site with the millions of others giving gratitude.
Anyway I’ve had this problem for many months now and just found an extremely obvious solution that I’ve been over-looking. I’ve tried everything in this forum and more with no success. Finally I went into the ‘Advanced Bios Features’ and went into the ‘boot priority’ menu (which for some reason I had never seen before). My secondary HD was showing in the first boot priority which was the problem, because all I have on this drive is media. All I did was switch the master drive to the first boot priority and ‘WALLA’.
Thought this might help anyone else running a Phoenix Award Bios/Abit KD7A. I can now love this board again instead of suspecting it as the culprit! -Casey
Thank you… very simple, concise solution to a problem having me wodering for hours what the hell did go wrong with my ghost image…
Thank you for advice, I tried everything except changing cable to 80 pin from 40 pin when I did it finally worked along with large access setting.
I’m sorry I meant 80 conductor to 40 conductor 39 pin.
I’m having the same problem as Marcin (#433), I have a Song Vaio VGN-A317S, and when I press F2 to get into the BIOS Setup Utility (American Megatrends, v02.43), all i get is a very limited menu where I can only change date, password and device boot priority. I’ve read here and there that Sony lock their BIOS. Do they also make an incredibly simply menu so people can’t mess with BIOS settings?
Anyhow, theres no option in the settings for “IDE HDD auto detection”. Can anybody help with a solution? Thanks so much!
Hi Stefan,, I thought u might be interested so u can put it up. Recently my friends ASUS A8N-SLi SE has been doing it, but it never used to,, altho his BIOS battery is flat so it resets every so often..
My only question is why did it always use to work?
Most likely because your friend is never going to win the lottery for he used up all the luck in the bottle to boot the system with a faulty battery the “right” way. Seriously, a flat battery is just that: a flat battery. So you just don’t know what the BIOS initializes to after a reboot. Chances are it will retain the original information but once in a while a bit will flip and I guess that’s what happened to your friend’s PC.
For the Sony VAIO users: It’s been a long time since I’ve owned and used a Sony VAIO notebook. But I’m quite sure to remember that Sony (as some other vendors) uses a special software to access all the features of the notebook’s BIOS whereas the direct access using F3 on startup just gives you a limited selection. So you should try to lacate the correct system software for your VAIO model and see whether this provides a switch or an option to change the translation mode of your hard drive.
@grim_fandango (#436): Yep, using FAT32 will always work (don’t ask me why, I just don’t know) but then you really don’t want to use FAT32 for many reasons. First of which is performance. On large hard drives FAT32 just sucks. Next waste of disk space comes to mind. Where NTFS uses 4K blocks no matter what the size of the drive, FAT32 will allocate up to 64k for even the smallest files on large disks. Additional space is wasted for storing the long file names. And last but not least Access Control Lists (ACLs) aren’t working that great on FAT32. So, in essence: Yes, you *can* do that. It’s just that *I* wouldn’t ;)
Thank you for your help Stefan. I discovered in the end that it wasnt a BIOS change that had caused the error, i’m not sure what it was, but a FIXMBR and FIXBOOT (in that order) from the Windows XP recovery console did the trick. thanks again for your help.
I had the same error during fresh installation
“Error loading operating system”
The solution as stated intially (Solution 1):
BIOS settings ->
change access method from “Auto” to “Large” (not LBA, not CHS!).
& then while rebooting, got the new error message “A disk read error occurred”
So booted again from the CD & started the whole process from the beginning & it worked like charms !!
What I had actually did was, formatted my SATA disk drive (320GB WD) as a secondary IDE from an OS running WIN-XP on “C” Drive. Later I removed the Primary SATA disk & used the new formatted disk for a fresh install. I get a feeling that this process might have caused the (in)famous error.
Hi! hope you can help me.
I am using my PC last night (pentium 4, windows XP with 120GB memory), downloading files and surfing sites. I do have a reliable anti-virus so I am confident downloading stuffs. All was perfectly fine till I got this “error loading operating system” when I tried to turn-on my PC again. Was it because of the virus? WHat do i need to do to fix it? Sorry but I am a kinda noob to technical stuffs. Ive read you need to change the settings from Auto to large in BIOS but do I need to reformat my PC first or no need to do it? I hope I dont need to do reformatting so I can save all my files in my drive.. also I do not know how to reformat neither. PLS somebody help. I am staying in Japan and dont know how to speak japanese and Labor fee here is so expensive.
Hello. a follow up on my problem above.
I was able to access my OS using fixboot command and use my computer.. but the problem now is the “error loading operating system” keeps on returning on restart/rebooting and I need to do another repair and fixboot all over again. One thing I noticed whenever I am replacing the current boot sector by a new one was it says the boot sector is corrupt.
Is it possible some kind of virus is corrupting my boot sector on start-up? Since I discovered that my PC was being infected by tons of trojans and viruses. I am trying to get rid all of it totally but I am being denied to log-on in safemode. All I can see is blank whenever I am in safemode?
DO you have any idea what to do first?
Can the BIOS setting change “auto” to “large” applicable on this? also, I was able to recover my important datas last night by keeping it in my IPOD temporarily(no available spare hard drive at the moment) so if reformatting is needed i am ready. Do you think reformatting will get rid of the problem?
Waiting for a reply. Any advice will be appreciated. Thanks.
Robert,
Your problem definitely sound like there’s some kind of virus responsible. Since fixing the boot sector doesn’t permanently solve it you might wan’t to try to:
1) If available, activate the Boot Sector Protection (Sometimes called Virus Protection) in your BIOS right after fixing the boot sector yet again. This will at least tell you which program is trying to access the boot sector so you can get rid of that.
2) Again, if available, try to boot from a Winows recovery CD with some antivirus tools other than the one you’re using right now
3) As a last resort you may wish to reinstall Windows and all of the apps you’re using. This is, if you’re using original software only. In case you don’t chances are that one of the apps from other sources is the one carrying the virus ;)
And no, the BIOS change from “auto” to “large” is not applicable here. What’s happening is that some nasty piece of software is writing a FAT32 boot record to your NTFS drive or vice versa.