i have a Compaq laptop that has WINDOW me worked fine than when i turned on all i get is Compaq screen than it says operating system not found i did the PHOENIX bios setup utility did not help i do not have any of the Cd's because the CD ROM broke. is there any hope? thank you for any help.Is this a new computer?
If it is, does it have a hard drive inside it?
Unfortunately, opening a laptop is more difficult then a PC, so it will be harder to tell. Consult your documentation for instructions on opening the hard drive bay. (You can listen for the harddrive as well)

Did it at ONE time have an operating system on it? Quote from: mom123 on November 29, 2007, 08:07:20 PM

i have a Compaq laptop that has window me worked fine than when i turned on all i get is Compaq screen than it says operating system not found i did the phoenix bios setup utility did not help i do not have any of the Cd's because the CD ROM broke. is there any hope? thank you for any help.

There are a few things that can cause the dreaded Operating System Not Found error at boot: There is a disk in the floppy drive that is not bootable, there is a problem with the boot partition on the hard drive, or the hard drive has failed.

.....

Check the BIOS

Once you have confirmed there are no floppies or CDs in the drives that the system might be trying to boot to, get into the computer’s BIOS to make sure the hard drive is being detected. The key you’ll press will vary from computer to computer, but these are normally either ESC, F1, F2, F10 or Delete. Tap these keys continuously when first POWERING up the PC.

Once in the BIOS, LOOK for the Primary Master. There should be a hard drive listed here. If not, we may have a problem with the hard drive.