No Operating System found

[smcdonald]

When ever I boot up my Dell laptop it comes up with the message: Operating system not found. I want to load a new OS anyways so do I need to load dos? Do I need to load the drivers for the CD-ROM? Help me

[spaceAlien]

OK, we'll assume that there is nothing on the hard drive that you haven't backed up - if you still want try to recover anything, that's a whole 'nother issue.

So you have a hard drive with no partitions, or blank partition, or partition with corrupted OS. And you want to install a new OS. What you need is 'distribution media' - usually a CD with anything newer than DOS6.22...

So whatcha got? Do you have a CD? Do you have a CD drive? Can you get your machine to boot from the CD?

later --


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waiting for windoz to install

[diurnal]

Hit del on startup, or f10. I think thats it for the hps. Then go into the bios and find autodetect for your harddrive, and find it .
After that hit save and exit , hit yes and then see if that works


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Sledgehammer will save the day!

[Mini-Me]

Hello!

If you are planning to install Linux in any of it's forms, BeOS, OS/2 WARP, or QNX, then so long as your computer's BIOS can boot from the CD-ROM drive, then all you need is the installation CD of the OS in question.
MOST new OS'es these days come on bootable CD-ROM discs.
Note that I say "MOST".
You definetly should have no problems installing Linux, as pretty much all the distrubutions come on bootable CD's.
The bootable CD thing only becomes an issue, if your computer does not support booting from CD...
Pretty much any Pentium 120MHz and above will let you boot from CD, but unfortunately most machines below a Pentium 100MHz will not have support for this...

What OS are you planning to install?

Hard-drive capacity limits become an issue too for older OS'es, specifically DOS 5 or 6.22
DOS 7(raw bootable DOS from the Win95b or Win98SE emergency restart disks) support FAT32, so they can be usefully put too use as a pure DOS system up to around 32GB.(I have a DOS system like this myself - a 20GB DOS machine!!!(used as a dedicated MP3 player))

Good luck!
http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif


G.



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Windows is the most dangerous computer virus on the Internet.

[Mini-Me]

ADDITIONAL: A PC will look(generally) for a bootable floppy disk first, CD-ROM next(if supported), and then the Primary Master hard-drive, which is normally the "C:\" drive.
If the computer has a floppy inserted, but it is not bootable, it will cause the computer to stop with a message similar to: "Non-system disk. Insert system disk and press any key..."
This means that the computer found a floppy-disk present, but was unable to boot from it.

This can be a source of confusion for many people.
People say: "Well, if the computer can't boot from the floppy, why dosen't it just move on to the hard drive?"
Good question.
Basically, what happens is that the computer queries the floppy drive too see if it has a disk inserted. If the floppy drive reports to the computer that there IS a disk inserted, then the computer will ASSUME that this disk is bootable, and tell the floppy drive to spin-up and it will attempt to boot from it.
When this fails, the computer is snookered, cos as far as _IT_ is concerned, it found a bootable device(the floppy drive with disk inserted), and now it can't boot from it. Not knowing what to do next, it hangs...

When the computer starts and assuming there is NO DISK in the floppy drive, the computer queries the floppy-drive, and the drive will report that there is no disk inserted. The computer therefore knows there is no boot disk in the floppy drive, and only then does it move on to the hard-drive and try to boot from it...

Weird huh?

Most people agree with me in that if the computer cannot find a bootable floppy disk(disk is inserted, but not bootable), then instead of hanging, it should try for a bootable sector on the main hard-drive.
I suppose there is a reason for it, but I don't know what it is.


G.


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Windows is the most dangerous computer virus on the Internet.

[rond36]

Welcome to the PC Guide Forum
Insert an emergency boot disk from your opperating system that is on your PC now when prompted choose boot with CDROM support when you get to the A:\> (Type) format C: (note space between format and C: ) it should look like this-> A:\>format C: WARNING ALL DATA ON YOUR BOOT HARD DRIVE WILL BE ERRASED AND CAN NOT BE RECOVERED http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/eek.gif Insert your new opperating system CD and at the A:\> type D:\setup should look like this-> A:\>D:\setup (D being your CDROM drive). This should get you started on your way to a new opperating system on a clean hard drive. By the way sence this is a Dell and Dell uses proprietary software do you have a bootable CDROM recovery disk if you do, use it insted of the above procedure because it will return your drive to the original settup and opperating system with all of your drivers loaded along with added software not included with the retail version of Windows. If you want Dell's software you have to buy Your new opperating system from Dell. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/wink.gif To use the recovery CD insted of typing format at the a:\> just insert your recovery CD and reboot it should boot to the CD just follow the prompts. When you say "I want to install a new OS anyway" do you meen a different OS or a new install of the same OS that you are using now? P.S. Let us know how it turns out.

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Alright who messed it up this time!



[This message has been edited by rond36 (edited 12-20-2001).]