missing operating system

[davmac]

I have be given a pc which looks like the hard drive may have been formatted, after turning on the pc you only get a black screen and the message "missing operating system".I was thinking of building my own pc and use this one as a template to help me understand better.is it possable to put on a new os and get this pc up and running as at some point i would have to put a os on a new built pc, i am only a beginner at this and google everything.
thanks
davmac

[dctyper]

yes, just put in a disc and install

dc

[leonhook]

use a free linux os such as ubuntu?
if you don't have windows

[nano_watt]

I would check the connections to the hard drive. It is possible that the OS is there but it can't find it as the HD is not connected or powered up.
You can also use a live Linux CD of Ubuntu and find out whats on your hard drive without doing any installation or damage to your hard drive data.

[davmac]

Hi just getting back to this prob, the harddrive was formatted so i downloaded the abuntu os cd and loaded that on to the pc ,and its working great, I have never heard of abuntu before and it runs with firefox which looks good,so I am googing to try and get my head around this new system,thanks for your input

[swartalf]

You can also try Windows 7 Release Candidate 1 - it's free for evaluation use until april 2010, so you could try it. Ofcourse this is in case that you have any Windows specific software that you'll need a Win OS for it