Missing Operating system?

Element · Oct-18-2004

My name is Matt and this is my first post on this message board. I have a question and any information on the subject would helpful.
I recently purchased a 1999 Gateway computer with a Mem size of 128, HD-3.26 gb and CPU speed of 350. Attempting to start my new computer, I find it would not run because I had a "Missing Operating System", so I put my Windows 98 se disk in my CD-Rom and got no response. I called a tech support number and was told to go to Microsoft.com and download a re-boot program. I could not find this re-boot program and I would really like to get this computer running. Any information on how to fix this problem would be very helpful.

Alan · Oct-19-2004

Put a boot disk into your floppy drive and turn on the PC, if it boots from the diskette type sys c: and press enter, this should give you the message system transferred. Once this has been completed reboot the computer.
If you dont have a boot disk, you can download one here.
Let us know how you get on.

Element · Oct-21-2004

I downloaded a boot disk and ran it. It got me farther then ever to solving this problem, but my troubles still continue. I downloaded a boot disk from the site you showed me. Before yesterday I couldn’t even get my cd rom drive( D drive) to show up on dos. It would say invalid drive spec., but I ran the fdisk program with my boot disk and messed around with my patrations(??), and I got my D drive to show. I've read that all i'm suppose to do is run my win98 disk,but my windows 98 disk won't boot. I have tried win 95 too. It tells me to abort, retry. As you can tell I’m new on fixing computers. Any suggestions from anyone would be greatly appreciated. I will reply to this again with a little more information next time.

Alan · Oct-22-2004

Does your machine recognise any cd's? games, programs whatever?

Element · Oct-25-2004

It only recognizes from the A drive. Do you think that my cd drive is busted?

Rob · Oct-27-2004

If you boot with the boot floppy and get access to the CD again, you should be able to insert the Win 98 CD and change to the CD drive, once there enter setup.exe.

That should start the Windows Install program.

Element · Oct-28-2004

Yesterday I took my computer to some guy who fixed it for me. He said the the original owners tried to get fancy when they erased it and scrwed it all up. Anyway, thanks for your help.