15 replies to this topic

[Sharley14]

I wiped my harddrive with darwins boot n nuke. I put in the windows installation cd. The computer says operating system not found.What do I do now?

[exile360]

What type of PC is it (brand name, laptop, desktop etc)?

[Sharley14]

Spartan laptop I dont Know what year model I bought it used

[exile360]

OK, is the Windows disc you're using a standard Windows installation disc or is it some type of Spartan branded "Recovery or Restore disc"?

[Sharley14]

It's a standard windows vista disk

[exile360]

OK, you should be able to just boot from it and it should offer the option to install. But since you wiped the drive, make sure you select the option to install, not repair.

[Sharley14]

Thanks I'll give it a try

[exile360]

OK, if you don't have any luck let us know.

[nosirrah]

Just a note , you may either have to set optical drive as boot device #1 in your BIOS or use the F# key that open the boot menu to be able to boot from CD/DVD to begin with .

[exile360]

nosirrah, on Dec 27 2008, 12:26 AM, said:

Just a note , you may either have to set optical drive as boot device #1 in your BIOS or use the F# key that open the boot menu to be able to boot from CD/DVD to begin with .

Wow, I'm a moron and it's been far too long. It didn't even occur to me that the OS not found error was the message from the BIOS! You'd think after all the years I spent as a tech I'd remember that one, oh well.

[Sharley14]

exile360, on Dec 27 2008, 06:44 PM, said:

Wow, I'm a moron and it's been far too long. It didn't even occur to me that the OS not found error was the message from the BIOS! You'd think after all the years I spent as a tech I'd remember that one, oh well.

[Sharley14]

Your no moron Im the one.I still can't figure out what the os message means and what to do to fix it.You've been a big help .I really appreciate you taking your time to help me .Thanks again.

[DaChew]

Is the vista disk in the drive when you power up the laptop?

Does your laptop have a COA sticker with numbers on it?

Is your vista disk a factory microsoft one

I notice Spartan sells with a lot of options

[Sharley14]

Yes disk is in drive when I boot up. I have a sticker says,''S.N. SR020010209, Model # M1472". es,it's a factory microsoft disk,put out with a dell laptop,Ijust purchased for my daughter.It has never been used.It says,reinstallation DVD Windows Vista,Home Basic 32BIT SP1.

[DaChew]

This is going to be complicated so bear with me,

the dell disk is possibly not even bootable, you can test your laptop with any bootable cd or dvd

Since you bought the laptop used, if it had a factory installed OS it would also have a sticker from microsoft(COA) with the OS version and numbers

Otherwise you would need to contact the seller to see if they forgot to give you the software, they are obligated to

If they were illegal then you are stuck, but I would just buy a generic oem copy(legal) w numbers

There are free linux distros


anyways here a link you may need, I already lost it once

ftp://download.spart...ks/M1472(7521)/

[nosirrah]

F12 is boot menu on Dell systems . Put the install disk into your optical drive and reboot . As soon as the reboot starts tap F12 once a second . When the boot menu comes up choose optical drive or CD/DVD , it will be one or the other . The screen will clear and you will see boot from disk .... at the top of the screen , you need to hit any key before that goes away , you will have about 3 seconds to do so .