# Solved: operating system not found..now what?



## trixxie62 (Sep 15, 2005)

a friend of mine just gave me a laptop they were going to toss out
they handed me the laptop with two hard drives and said good &%kin luck. nice right.

i put in one hard drive and and it goes to this screen









says operating system not found error loading operating system
i tried to set bios back to default but i still get this 
so i tried the second hard drive given... same thing.

i have no clue what windows was in it. i am guessing its either 95 as the sticker on it says or 98

i do have a windows 98 update cdrom ...i have a windows me cdrom i also have an xp cdrom... nothing works. i tried them all and it still ends up on the screen above. all these cds i have from my other computers.

i have no clue what to do next i searched microsoft help for hours as it is now 2 am and i am totally as clueless from when i started at 9pm. 

if it matters the laptop is a dell latitude LM

any help would be greatly appreciated  thank you in advance!


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## kimsland (Oct 22, 2007)

Hmmm 8 Meg of Ram and 2 Gig HardDrive.
I'd go win98 (bootable CDrom) Xp won't fit !

Make sure bios set for CD first (CD being the point)
Make sure your 98 (or95) CD is the full version

It's worth about $5 by the way


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## trixxie62 (Sep 15, 2005)

kimsland said:


> Hmmm 8 Meg of Ram and 2 Gig HardDrive.
> I'd go win98 (bootable CDrom) Xp won't fit !
> 
> Make sure bios set for CD first (CD being the point)
> ...


i tried to use the 98 upgrade cd, maybe thats why it is not working. i just need it for word pad and such. it would be nice to have internet access on it but that may be pushing my luck. lol. 
thank you i will try a full version of 98 and let you know how it goes.


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## kimsland (Oct 22, 2007)

Sorry double post


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## kimsland (Oct 22, 2007)

That'll work (full version)

as long as the computer doesn't have other h/w issues !


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## Kitch (Mar 27, 2005)

Windows 98 requires a minimum of 16MB RAM & that's a bare minimum.

95 is about your limit, even then you're not going to be able to do much with that system.


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## kimsland (Oct 22, 2007)

So Vista is out of the question then !


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## trixxie62 (Sep 15, 2005)

kimsland said:


> That'll work (full version)
> 
> as long as the computer doesn't have other h/w issues !


ok so far not so good. window 98 does the same thing. i am trying to get a windows 95 right now. i have also tried my windows me because that is a full version and i have used that cd on one of my desktops.

i think it may be h/w issues. when i got in to the bios this is what i have.








on the boot sequence the only options are hard disk only and diskette first. which i have it set on on both with no luck. it says the diskette A *not *installed... there is only a cd rom. is this just labeled as the diskette? the the cd does attempt to start up you can hear it.

i i have tried hitting F8 to choose the path and that doesnt work either 
on all my other computers in the bios it gives me choices for cdrom and disk drive not the diskette.

so how do i fix hardware issues? is there a way i can get to a part of dos where i can type in commands? after the error loading operating system it just beeps at me if i try to type 
anything.

is there a way to test the harddrives on a desktop computer?


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## trixxie62 (Sep 15, 2005)

sry i just seen your posts after i posted my last. i will get a windows 95 and try that. is there a way to test the hard drives though? just incase it would happen to be them.


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## kimsland (Oct 22, 2007)

Yes you could physically remove the harddrive and connect to your PC
http://cgi.ebay.com/3-5-IDE-to-1-8-...ryZ41993QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
But, you should confirm that your harddrive is a 1.8" hard drive.

Or you could purchase another harddrive. You should download the manual for this laptop, to seee the maximum size of harddrive and ram allowed.

By the way even after these sales
say 16 Meg of ram
Say 10 Gig HardDrive
Adaptor cable (to test in a desktop computer)

The laptop still may not work
But...
If you could plug the harddrive into your desktop, you could
Partition (Clean)
Format to Fat32
Sys the harddrive (which makes it bootable) Or use Format /s (gets a little hard to locate a Win95 PC)
Then create a Win95 folder (sorry about that)
and then copy all the Windows cab files to this folder
Then re-insert the harddrive - (or better install Windows 95 on this harddrive as the only main harddrive in your computer - and then return the harddrive to he laptop)

Really lets just mark this as Solved and move along, I don't think this is all worth it.
A really cheap Windows Laptop, can cost as low as $85
http://cgi.ebay.com/Gateway-Solo-53...yZ140081QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

This project that you are taking on. Is NOT worth it.


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## kimsland (Oct 22, 2007)

Please mark as Solved, in Thread Tools above. If you do not require further support for this


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## monckywrench (Nov 29, 2007)

"sry i just seen your posts after i posted my last. i will get a windows 95 and try that. is there a way to test the hard drives though? just incase it would happen to be them."

Download a diagnostic floppy image from the drive makers support website. Google will get you there.

Although functionally such an old machine is a waste of time due to lack of memory, for the sake of learning it is fine. Spend NOTHING on hardware, but spending time to learn the very basics will serve you very well.

I'd install a DOS on the thing, hunt drivers as required, and browse using Arachne.

Here's a classic link 
http://oldfiles.org.uk/powerload/o_dos.htm

You could also try Windows 3.1 with Calmira:
http://www.calmira.net/

http://www.computerhope.com/win3x.htm

A trick I use to find system specs so I can hunt drivers is to Google the machine name and "Linux". This guy had enough ram to run 95.

http://sweb.uky.edu/~msunde00/latitude.html

If you try to install 95, boot to DOS first and copy the install files to the hard disk.

View this PURELY as an interesting puzzle and an exercise in computer archaeology.


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## john1 (Nov 25, 2000)

Hi,

I use the 'K-Meleon' browser on my machines that have limited RAM.
It will run well on a little less than 16 MB of RAM,
and there is another version out now called 'K-MeleonCCF ME' which is
said to be very fast, and i cant find the correct amount but i think
it is supposed to run fine on 8 MB of RAM.

So, i would suggest for your laptop,
get Windows95 without Internet Explorer, early versions came without,
and use that new 'K-MeleonCCF ME' which i think is a free version.

Or,
you could install '98Lite' which is what i do as i prefer 98 to 95,
although there is little difference, and try 'K-meleon' or
'K-MeleonCCF ME' as a browser.

They are about the least resource hungry browsers you will get for free

Best of luck with your Laptop, John


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## TheOutcaste (Aug 8, 2007)

The BIOS screens show that laptop has *72*MB of ram, not 8MB, so Win98 or 98 SE will work just fine. Win2K might also work but it might need a BIOS update.

The Win98 upgrade disk will work for a clean install, it will just ask to see the full version disk of the OS you are "upgrading" from.

The laptop probably does not support booting from CD. You would need a Win98 startup disk, or a DOS Boot disk to load the CD-ROM drivers so you can run setup from the CD. If you didn't get the floppy with the laptop, you may have to install the hard drive into another PC, boot that PC with a Win98 startup floppy, format and SYS the drive, copy the cd-rom drivers over, and modify the config.sys and autoexec.bat files to point to C: instead of A: and not load the ram drive. You could also just copy the Win9x folder onto the hard drive and run setup from the hard drive.

HTH

Jerry


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## monckywrench (Nov 29, 2007)

DOH! Me bad for not reading the BIOS instead of the post below it. That much memory is fine for 98.

I agree with "You could also just copy the Win9x folder onto the hard drive and run setup from the hard drive."


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## john1 (Nov 25, 2000)

yes, that tripped me up too.
Win98se should be fine.

I would normally copy the files and use the HD too,
though i dont know if an 'upgrade' CD is the same.

Best of luck with it, John


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