My older laptop is an HP Pavilion dv6700. For about the last year, I've been almost afraid to turn it off. Often, it won't restart without crossed fingers and many tries.

The most often response I see is "Operating System Not Found". At this point the motor is running full blast. I can press the OFF button and sometimes it comes back like nothing happened, and sometimes I go through a process of taking out the battery, letting it cool, and trying again.

It works fine when it's working! McAfee is installed and scans when it stays on long enough (this laptop is rarely used [maybe for 30 minutes every few days], but has never caught a bug). SpyBot hasn't caught anything in over a year.

Any ideas what might be wrong?

Usually when it says that , it means something in the operating system is getting scrambled.
Do you have the recovery or an install disk?

If there is anything important on the hard drive , it would be good to copy the files to a flash drive , CD, DVD or some other storage device before or if a total failure happens.

Then if you have recovery disk or installation cd you could do a complete fresh install.

If the hard drive is making extra squeaks, squeals or odd noises then it might be the hard drive getting ready to fail.

Oh,
is the hard rive nearly full?
that can cause problems , if you can clean out/remove unused programs /files it may help the issue.

Thank you, Jo*Mar! I will check the capacity level.

It makes a grunt sound once while starting up, but no unusual noises otherwise. Just the motor running on high speed sometimes.

every computer has a small battery the size of a coin in it to hold the hardrive info etc booting sequence

id say they are easier to change if its a desktop

a store would charge you maybe 25 dollars

or buy a battery at rite aid or target or someplace

make sure its the same battery with same number on it

I had time to look for information -

hp laptop says operating system not found- lots of HP info links here -
http://www.google.com/search?q=Opera...w=1360&bih=669


http://support.microsoft.com/kb/321626

http://www.wondershare.com/fix-compu...not-found.html

On the 2nd attempt this morning the self-test is running.

Fingers are crossed. Not sure why as I don't know what I'm hoping for...

Here's what the screen said after the test:

(S.M.A.R.T.)ve)
100% Complete
(Quick) Pass
(Comprehensive) Pass
(S.M.A.R.T.) Pass
Hit any key to exit (I hit the space bar)

next screen:
Test Status #10000 Passed

asked if I wanted to save or edit Configuration; I chose Save.

Then it started up normally. We'll see what happens next time I have to restart. I'm not going to do it until it is requested!

Thanks everyone!

So the Smart testing is saying the hard drive itself is OK.
Then it is another issue causing the trouble if it acts up again.

If it does, the next things to look at would be the
windows operating system - may have gotten scrambled - a reinstall would fix this is you have the CD or the restore disks

or
some other mechanical /hardware inside the laptop is failing - this is hard to tell , the easiest way would be if a re installation of windows is done and the problems continues, then that would more or less show something is wrong with the internals of the laptop.

Thanks, Jo*mar! The next restart may tell me something.