Hi everyone,

Is there anyone out the that can help me?

I have picked up an old Toshiba satellite 110cs and I knew the hard drive would be wiped before I got it.

I know VERY little about pc's, laptops etc.

I'm getting the error message 'system disk missing' 'replace disk and then press any key' ????

What does this mean???

Thanks

It means you don't have a bootable OS (operating system) on the system. Since you say the hard drive was wiped this makes sense.

You need to boot from an installation media (floppy or CD) and have it install on the hard drive. These installation media are bootable.

Not familiar with your Toshiba but most PCs/laptops have an option for "Settings" or "Configuration" you'll see before it tries to boot from disk. Often it will say something like "Hit F1 for setup". If you do that when you see the message you can see your systems settings.

Make a note of all system settings BEFORE trying to change any.

What you are most interested in is boot order. Usually it will have something like floppy first / first hard drive second (or CD first). Depending on age of equipment it may have floppy then CD then first hard drive.

FYI: Sometimes you get the above message if you already have a floppy or CD in the drive but it is NOT a bootable media. Simply removing the floppy or CD would allow it to go to the hard drive assuming the hard drive has a bootable OS. However as noted above if they've wiped your hard drive you almost certainly don't currently have a bootable OS.

Thanks for your help!! This will make sense to my husband who is a lot more clued-up. I am a lowly vacuum cleaner operator!

The next thing I have to do is find a floppy to boot from.

Not surprised you haven't heard of this model, it's probably older than me! Plus no CD drive!!!

Cheers again you are a saint/angel. : )

You are posting to the internet so are presumably on another computer. You may be able to create a boot floppy from that other computer depending on its OS if you just want to see if you can make the laptop boot. Also some systems do allow boot from network. Checking the settings I mentioned above should let you know if you have such an option.

Also, I haven't used any of them but there are sites from which you can download boot floppies. Doing a Google search for "boot floppies" may help you find one.

Angel? Maybe a fallen one...