Hi All,
I have read other Missing Operation System post and nothing helps.

I was given this pc - Dell Dimension 4100-733MHz -256 ram - 20Gb HD with Me os and the original Me cd.
I was told the HD was partitioned and during partition the winMe was completely deleted
and HD was never formated.
All i see in the partition dept is the C: that is "A" for Active.
when I start up the pc it says Missing Operation System.
I have a win98 floppy for boot up if needed or do i need a different boot-up floppy ect..?
btw i'm not pc savvy.

knowing that the win Me is no longer on the system..i have an original XP Home CD and original win98SE but rather install XP home.
how do i get the Missing Operation System to recognize anything?
the pc doesnt boot from the cd-rom when i put in the xp cd.
I tried different position orders with the...
A:
C: Ide HD
CD-Rom

and still nothing

F2-F8 all work...i can get into the system's bios,
i can also see or make/delete partitions.
but it always comes back to MISSING OPERATION SYSTEM when i restart the pc.

Any guide/steps to get my described problem resolved?
what am I missing?
Thank You

This post has been edited by Kaffa: Apr 28 2008, 08:13 PM

If you can't get the CD to boot any other way you can put something called SmartBootManager on a floppy and it will let you boot from any device on the machine. I've used it many times on older machines. But you can also use the win98 floppy to begin the setup process for WinME, you just have to migrate to the folder that has the setup files and enter setup.

Welcome to Geeks2Go!

In the BIOS, the first boot device must be set to "CD-ROM"

With the XP CD in the drive, and the BIOS set properly as above you should see a message "Press any key to boot from CD" shortly after the PC is started. Are you doing that?

It's easy to miss the prompt and you only get the opportunity for a few seconds. If you miss that opportunity the PC
will try to boot from the hard disk instead -- hence the error.

Bear in mind that Dell computers are not known for being easy to set up with a different version of Windows other than the version it was supplied with.
For one thing, there are no XP-compatible device drivers on their website for this model, and Dell PCs can be very "picky" about which drivers will work
from any other source. Custom-made components are to blame for that -- they need custom-made drivers, standard ones won't work properly.


This post has been edited by pip22: Apr 29 2008, 12:26 AM

Hi and thanks both for your inputs,
I've tried all that you have suggested and contrary to what GW Bush said
this one's mission as not prevailed.
the pc is going to the curb.
thanks both for your time.
Elvis has left the buffet.

Don't give up yet. Have you still got the PC.
Me should install ok
Step 1) go to Bootdisk (click here)
Download the ME bootdisk.
Step 2) go to your bios and make sure it is set to boot from floppy.
Step 3) restart computer with boot disc in the floppy drive and follow the prompts.
Cheers
peterm