Dell Mini 1210 Inspiron - Restor OS

Hi! I have the computer referenced above and when I turn it on it is telling me that the operating system is not found. I'm told that sometimes there's a factory installed back-up petition?? Ctrl F11 does nothing. F12 gets me to the boot menu and I can't see anything there except restore default settings which isn't helping. I do not see a "repair my pc" option. Any suggestions?.

What version of Windows shipped on the laptop? Vista,XP,ect

Boot into the BIOS (aka System Setup Menu) and check to see if the hard drive is detected. You may have a faulty hard drive.

Run the Dell Diagnostics to test the hard drive.