I had a small virus on Dell XPS. Its about 8 months OLD with home edition. I did a system restore and a virus was HANGING AROUND about buying some virus scanner software...anyways. I did a restore and it was fine but the window kept popping up so I did another restore and I selected something different from the list. I was going FAST and I obviously wasnt paying attention. I hit cancel after it started restoring the files and I believe it was warning me that I would lose my stuff if I continued. I hit cancel now I have the missing operating system error. Dell didnt send me a windows 7 cd. I was suppose to let them backup my files OL but Im not letting anybody have access to my puter. So I bought an eternal HD and backed up everything there. I plugged into my laptop to check and everythings there. Heres the ? How the F do I restore from my external HD if missing my software?.......First of all, system restore does not eliminate the virus. Second, copying infected data is not a good idea. Last, I REALLY don't understand what you're trying to do.

If I were you, at this point I'd format the hd and start from scratch - and that's not a suggest I make often or lightly.another site wanted me to somehow get to advanced settings to restore......so far I cant