Hello all, I am quite new to all this so please be gentle with me! recently given a laptop which was networked in an office. Nice little machine but....... the operating system has been taken off!! Have tried to reload, have tried to format, tried the fdisk thingy but to no avail, PLEASE can anybody help me - Thank you in advance

What sort of a laptop? What exactly do you want to do? What have you exactly tried to do? How exactly does it fail?

Thank you for replying. the following is what happens, after turning on it does a couple of beepy sounds, then goes to a screen that says TravelMate, the screen then goes blank for a second or two then "operating system not found" appears in the top lefthand corner.

Somebody suggested reformatting the hard drive with a win98 starup disk so I tried that but that didn't work although I couldn't the format command on the startup disk so after searching through my disks I found a universal boot disk for a gateway computer. The laptop did read this disk and I got into the Dos directory on the disk, tried then to format C drive but am told CANNOT FORMAT A NETWORK DRIVE

try to do a sys c: from that floppy.
Or format the HD while you are still on the floppy, using format c: /s/u

Thank you for replying tried both sys c: says CANNOT SYS A NETWORK DRIVE
format c:/s/u says CANNOT FORMAT A NETWORK DRIVE

Use the FDISK program from the floppy, to delete any partitions you can find.
Then create them again and format the HD.

Do you happen to have a CD-ROM drive in that laptop? You would be better off booting from a Windows CD.

You need to mess with fdisk and format only if you are planning on running Windows 98 on the computer.

Tried FDISK says "ERROR READING FIXED DISK" oh woe is me

have tried 2 copies of win98, restore disks which have a copy of win98se on them, 2 copies of XP, plus some system and restore disks from another Acer laptop - think I hate laptops!!

There is a little-known parameter do dismount volumes, perhaps that works.
format c: /x/s/u

/x Causes the volume to dismount, if necessary, before it is formatted. Any open handles to the volume will no longer be valid.

says the X is an invalid switch, tried S & U too but still no joy

bios

Have you gone into the bios to see if it even has a hard drive identified? Maybe it was removed. You never say directly but is it an Acer?

In order:

1. Try to get some direct technical assistance from someone who knows computers.
2. Try ACER phone support for help.
3. Try Microsoft phone support for help.
4. Take the laptop to a qualified shop to load the O.S. for you.

Trying to do this through a tech forum is a waste of time.

Yes machine is an Acer - TravelMate, don't know how to get into bios - sorry

The format from e.g. Windows 2000 has the /x switch. It may not be included in W98 or generic format programs.
Go in a windows prompt, or on that floppy, and type in: format /? to get an overview of the possible switches.

No X - got, V Q F:Size B S T:Tracks N:Sectors 1 4 8 C

Get the format program from a more advanced version, such as ME or W2K or XP.
Do the format /? to find the /x switch
Acer laptops have mostly Fujitsu HDs. Try this Fujitsu-utility: http://www.fel.fujitsu.com/support/disk/software/erase.zip

You can also try Partition Magic.

The install-disks for Windows NT, if you can find them, contain some very powerful HD-format programs.

Thank you so much for your help I shall try this tomorrow and let you know the outcome, thanks again

Apparently, Blackstuff wants to take our disagreement public. That's fine with me. It seems that any advice given in this forum that doesn't originate from him is 'stupid'. As I told him, there is a point at which getting help is the best and easiest thing to do. Not everyone is a computer geek and doesn't want to spend days trying to fix something they don't have the background knowledge to fix? The originator of this thread does not have to take my advice, so what is so threatening about it?

Grow up Blackstuff.

Ok now this is silly, FLYINGACE, I can appreciate what you are saying about taking it to a dealer and letting them have a look but they are rather expensive, £50 just to look (half an hours worth) and then £25 an hour after that + parts + VAT - at those prices its a no no. Blackstuff has been really helpful and if it takes days to fix then so be it, the amount of time it takes really is not the issue getting the laptop up and running is and if it works afterwards then great if it doesn't then at least we have tried. I agree that not everybody is computer geek but it is nice to know there are people out there that do have the knowledge and are prepared to share it.

So.......... c'mon everybody lets shake hands and concentrate on getting this laptop up and running so I can then give it to my neice who would dearly love a computer but her Mum can't afford to buy her one.