Operating System Missing when booting with flash inserted

[Eric Bradshaw]

On 01/23/2015 05:00 AM, lubuntu-users-request at lists.ubuntu.com wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
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>     1. Operating System Missing when booting with flash inserted
>        (Steven Duckworth)
>     2. AW: Operating System Missing when booting with flash inserted
>        (leszek.lesner at web.de)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 10:56:42 +0200
> From: Steven Duckworth <literati69 at gmail.com>
> To: lubuntu user list <lubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com>
> Subject: Operating System Missing when booting with flash inserted
> Message-ID:
> 	<CAJZNep0n9TzLPxs6EhyRuSJB+e+gB6f19G15eZ8_6CWP6aQQag at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Hi everyone.
>
> Recently I've noticed that if I boot up with a flash drive inserted, I get
> the message "Operating System Missing" (quite scary!!).
> Normal booting occurs when the flash is removed.
>
> Any ideas why this is happening?
>
> I am using my laptop - a Fujitsu-Siemens Intel Celeron M (Pentium III)
> circa 2005.
>
> Thanks,
> Steve
>
Steve,

Some major guessing here as the Pentium III era is from much earlier 
than 2005. I think they *stopped* putting that chip (and it's Celeron M 
counterpart) in computers in 2000 or 2001. That would put this laptop 
right around the time USB flash drives came out. Rare that a computer 
that old could actually boot from a USB flash drive (and that could be 
the reason for the error right there), but possible I suppose.

My guess, if the computer is able to be booted from a USB flash drive, 
is that the BIOS is set to look at the USB flash drive *before* the hard 
disk drive to boot (and that the USB flash drive in question isn't set 
up to be booted from). I'm also guessing a similar error would come up 
if the optical drive had say a music CD in it and the CD-ROM drive 
appeared first in the boot menu.

If my guesses are accurate, the solution is to either *not* boot up with 
any USB flash drives in the machine, or get into the BIOS (a quick 
Internet search tells me it's likely the [F2] key you press as soon as 
the Fujitsu logo appears) and make the hard disk drive the first or top 
option in the boot menu.

The BIOS itself should tell you the exact keys to press, but here is 
some more guessing... You'd likely have to arrow right to the boot menu. 
Arrow down and stop at the hard drive. Hit [Enter] to select the hard 
drive "group," and then arrow down again to select one of the drives in 
the hard drive group. Then press [+], or [-], or [U] or [D] to move the 
hard disk drive above the USB flash drive, or the USB flash drive below 
the hard disk drive.

Eric
-- 
Thank You,
God Bless,
Computers4Christians
http://www.Computers4Christians.org/ <http://computers4christians.org/>