First, try to see if the disk drive is being recognized.  When the computer
is booting up, look and see if it is recognizing the drive in the BIOS.  If
not, then:

Make sure that the disk is spinning, i.e. making a noise.  If not, make sure
that the power cable is well set.  They are set pretty tight, so this is not
likely.
If the disk is not spinning, try another power connector to see if the disk
is bad or the power connector is bad or the power supply is bad.

Check to make sure that the ribbon cables have not become loose.  These do
not usually come loose if the computer is not moved, but they can,
particularly if they were not well set to begin with.  Short of a bad hard
drive this is the most likely candidate for a problem and is the most easily
fixed.

If the drive is spinning and being recognized in the BIOS, but the O.S. is
not found, then I would try a reinstall of the O.S.

Dean Kukral

----- Original Message -----
From: "Alan Hodges" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, April 15, 2004 12:40 PM
Subject: [PCBUILD] Can't find operating system?


My daughter runs W98 SE on a P3 500MHZ Gateway 128MB RAM and has contacted
me with this problem:

When she tried to boot up yesterday her PC went through the usual routine,
she heard the post beep, but then she got this message on the screen: 'Can't
find Operating System'.  I think this may be a hardware fault which is why I
am posting to this list rather than PC Soft.

Can anyone shed any light on the possible cause of this situation please.
The PC was working normally the day before this happened, and she did not
install or uninstall any applications prior to this.

Thank you.

Alan Hodges

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