I'm reformatting a friends notebook and unfortunatly, he doesn't have a floppy drive. I fdisked the hard drive and there isn't an operating system on the computer. Can somebody tell me what I can do to get to a command prompt? I've tried pressing F8 and Ctrl but it keeps coming up with No Operating System Found.

Thanks,

Jeff

No, this cannot be fixed by accessing the bios or anything.

The ONLY solution to this is to remove the HD, put it in another machine (with a floppy drive), install the OS and then return the HD to the orig machine.

Opening up laptops can be REALLY difficult. If you don't know exactly what you're doing you can do all kinds of damage.

Best to get a local computer-repair hobby shop to do this. Cost about $50.

I also have a CD-RW drive on my main computer. I tried creating a boot CD by downloading the files for a Win 98 startup disk. For some reason it is still saying operating system not foudn when I have the CD rom as the first boot device.

Is this possible?

Jeff

Because the cd-rom driver needs to be loaded before your laptop can "see" the cd drive, you still need an operating system to be found first.

I've only got myself into the kind of predicament you are in once before, and sure enough, I tried to boot from a Norton boot CD-rom, but it wouldn't work at all. I could change the bios settings to boot from the d:\ drive, but it still wouldn't work. I think the bios d:\ boot option on my machine means a second hard-disk, not a cd.

As in my first post, my only solution was to take my my machine to a repair shop and get them to remove the disk and install an OS.

Unless anyone else posts on this thread with other info, I think you'll find that's the only option. Though you could of course buy or borrow a floppy drive ........

Chris,

Thanks for your help. I have no idea why but this morning I put the Win 98 CD in (since it's also a boot disk) and it picked it up the first try. I tried doing this last night a few times and it just ignored the CD....maybe it was just a way of telling me to go to bed? :)

I believe starting with Win 98 MS made it so the CD rom drivers stay on the computer if you remove the OS, which explains why it picked up the CD I guess.

Thanks for replying to my posts.

Jeff

"""
I'm reformatting a friends notebook and unfortunatly, he doesn't have a floppy drive. I fdisked the hard drive and there isn't an operating system on the computer. Can somebody tell me what I can do to get to a command prompt? I've tried pressing F8 and Ctrl but it keeps coming up with No Operating System Found.
"""

As far as Microsoft DOS, Windows 95/98 and ME goes, the command prompt is part of the operating system . If you format or destructively repartition ("fdisked") the drive that contains the operating system (called C: in Microsoft DOS/Windows) the computer will not be able to load further than the BIOS (which was displaying the "No Operating System Found" message) because the operating system and therefore the command prompt has been destroyed. Thefore it is futile trying to reach the command prompt.

"""
I believe starting with Win 98 MS made it so the CD rom drivers stay on the computer if you remove the OS, which explains why it picked up the CD I guess.
"""

Many BIOSs in the last 3 to 6 years know how to use an IDE CDROM drive and can read and boot from a bootable CD - nothing to do with Microsoft drivers.

On the same note:

"""
I also have a CD-RW drive on my main computer. I tried creating a boot CD by downloading the files for a Win 98 startup disk. For some reason it is still saying operating system not foudn when I have the CD rom as the first boot device.
"""

I don't know how you tried this, but a CD is not bootable just by putting startup files on it, as you would do any other files. There is more than one way to create a bootable CD, but one method is to use an image of a bootable floppy disk and to burn that to a CD in a special way (which is of course CD writing program specific). I *think* what happens is the BIOS loads this into memory and pretends it is a floppy disk, then continues as if it were booting from a floppy disk.

Hi Guys,
I have been undergoing a similar problem but with a little variation.
I have a few files of WINNT 4.0 still residing on my hard disk(unfortunatley) and a newly installed Win2000 server + backup in D:/.Now at boot up it says that its unable to read the boot record from Cd-ROM.I want to reach the command prompt now no key seems to take me there.The system just hangs at the message..boot record not found in CD-ROM.I need the back up .Is there any way of reaching the command prompt so that I can start Win2000.Theres no floopy drive in my system and bootable CDs have also failed.The system is not reading the Win2000 cd,but can read Win NT,but stops at at the second phase of installation.

I got a problem. I have a laptop with external cd rom and floppy. I reformatted the c drive and now i cant install an os. It doesnt read the floppy drive or cd rom. i also cant get a command prompt but bios is accessible. I have no idea what to do. it feels like a dead end. Do i have to go out and get another hard drive with an os installed? hopefully not.