I have a Gateway NX850X laptop that I just put a new hard drive into. When I try to reinstall the Windows XP the computer displays "Operating System not found". How do I get past this? Thanks

new hard drive needs to be formatted before software can be installed on the hard drive. you need to use advanced setting on the software installation, and then format hard drive.

Swapping the hard drive from the Dell into the Gateway will not work because the Dell hard drive has been installed with Dell specific drivers and configurations.
When you install the Dell hard drive into the Gateway you need to wipe the hard drive and install a fresh copy Windows XP onto this hard drive and the Gateway device drivers etc.

Well, first of all XP is not the latest supported operating system from Microsoft.

That being said, I have not had a garbled screen followed by an error message 'setup didn't find any hard disk drive installed' on a laptop, in my limited experience with laptops (i.e. Acer One, Acer Aspire, Sony Vaio, etc.)

If you have an unexpected garbled screen it points to the pc board or mother board or the video card, but more likely the motherboard.

And, if you couple this with the hard disk drive not being detected, it reminds me of a situation where I had a no hard disk drive detected on a SCSI drive connected to my Windows 95 computer in the 1990s when I had heat related issues with the circuitry on the hard drive getting burnt out capacitors.

If the drive is not recognized, it might mean the boot sector is wiped, and essentially it needs to be reformatted and the operating system needs to be reinstalled (which you evidently tried to do).

To my memory, I never had this problem on Windows XP with a laptop, so I am thinking it's not Windows that is at fault, but the physical hardware is giving you problems.

If you boot from the CD for Windows XP and it doesn't find the drive, it's a big problem for this laptop.

I wish you luck in finding an answer to that one, seeing that it's out of warranty and XP is no longer supported by Microsoft.com.

Ok this is not as hard as one may think. Get a copy of whatever software you want from the net. Either Burn to a DVD & use an external USB, DVD, and install as usual. Or put it on a memory stick and use that. You will, if your machine is disabled, have to use a third parties machine to do all of that. There are a number of tutorials on the net of how to make and boot and install from a USB Flash Drive.

I have a wipro laptop. i install windows Xp .But my system could show the operating system error . Then I am reinstalled Windows Xp. But the system will turnoff.

eather the hard drive is bad or a windows program was removed. might need to reinstall windows.

When you install a new harddrive, it has no Operating System on it.
Windows XP and Windows Vista, are examples of an Operating System.

Each laptop manufacturer, has their own system of changing a laptop harddrive. Some allow you to press a key or two, to put the laptop in a state where it will save the basic Operating System files, and when you install the new harddrive, it will transfer them over to it.

Some laptop manufacturers do have this option.

You either have to take the harddrive out, install it into an external enclosure for a harddrive, (Uses a USB cable) Then attach the external enclosure via the USB cable, to another computer, and use a 'mirror' imaging program to save the Operating System to that computer.

Then the new harddrive is installed in that external enclosure, and the Operating System is 'mirrored' over to it.

Just information for you, as you cannot do this now with a crashed harddrive.
Your option now, is to buy a genuine copy of the Operating System you had on the laptop, and install it.
Not what you wanted to hear, huh?

You need to buy whatever version of Windows XP it had, (WinXP Home or WinXP Pro), or Windows Vista.
If it was Windows Vista, I suggest getting at least the Windows Vista Home Premium version.

I personally prefer Xp over Vista.
Tigerdirect.com, and Newegg.com, have these.
Look for Software>Operating Systems.

OR, you can simply put Ubuntu Linux on it for free.

Broadcom is a maker of Network cards and PXE is a generic name for Network Boot Bios .. have you set your Laptop to boot from a network before CD ?? (go into BIOS @ power on and set CD first, hard disk second)

If not, then it can't see any other bootable device so ends up trying the network as a 'last resort' ...

Did you remember to enter the BIOS setup and change the boot drive so the system would look to the (optical) drive in which you have put your XP disk? In most cases, you must tell the system where to look for boot files and with a new hard drive, there are no files to find.

If you don't have any malware defense installed yet, and can again get it up and running enough to go on line, I would recommend all of the following:
- AVG Free Grisoft Home Page - Spybot S&D Spybot Home page - AdAware Lavasoft Home Page
Basic versions are either free or ask for donations.

Try this it will really help to speed up your PC