dell laptop

[allgram]

hi,i have a dell laptop, problem is i am getting the message :operating system not found: what problem is it talking about?

[OBonio]

Possibly a broken hard drive.  The operating system is something like Windows XP which is stored on the hard drive.  If the hard drive is broken, or a cable has come loose, the laptop will report a 'missing operating system'.

[rojash]

On some machines you will get a message similal to this if you've left a floppy disk in the drive - so check that before binning your hard drive!

[Tim Baxter]

Further to previous answers, if the BIOS is not set up properly or CMOS battery has failed then system might not recognise the hard drive which contains the boot sequence for the operating system.  Under warranty ring manufacturer's help line