hi i'm another with an operating system not found error, nothing out of the ordinary has happened, computer just froze and on reboot the message "operating system not found" appears. No, theres no floppy disk in the drive, and i have tried wawdaves very good me resource post. I suspect that for some reason the something on the harddisk has failed, or maybe something in the mbr or somewhere which helps point to the correct partion and disk, anyone have any suggestions as to how to see these? I have tried booting using me floppies, and when i try fdisk it tells me that there are no drives. if this is a HDD failure, then would anyone be able to recommend data recovery methods or companies?

That error can occur when the hard drive isn't registered correctly in the CMOS either due to bad settings or drive failure, or when the DOS system (boot) files are missing or corrupted. See the post below. As far as recovery - if the drive is still functioning but for some reason cannot be made bootable, you could try connecting it as a slave (or secondary master) in a working machine Computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps only weigh 1 1/2 tons. - Popular Mechanics, 1949

Sorry, my mistake, it's not quite the same as the post below. Anyhow, first order of business is to see if the drive is 'seen' properly in the CMOS - until it is there are no commands that will work on the drive Computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps only weigh 1 1/2 tons. - Popular Mechanics, 1949

It also could be something as simple as the Hard Drive connections just came dislodged in the case, and need to be plugged back in. Acer Travelmate 3202 Toshiba Satellite 1800