Need help fixing "boot manager failed to find OS loader"?

I have a dell laptop, and it has been working fine until yesterday when it came up with a box saying that "startup repair cannot repair this computer automatically". I have researched a bit and found out that if i reinstall Windows Vista it will fix the problem. I inserted the reinstallation disk, but nothing comes up! Please help, this is a brand new laptop and it would be a shame if it is broken already. The only thing that i've been able to do, is somehow get to the dell media direct, and the disk was recognized, and it gives numerous options, but i haven't gotten anywhere with that either......please help!

 

You need to enter the computers BIOS menu and change the boot media/disk option. You want the laptop to boot from the CDROM drive before the HDD.

I think you can get to the BIOS by rebooting and pressing the DELETE key right when it turns on. I could be wrong and it is the F4 key, but you should see a screen flash by the says press "XX" for BIOS.

 

there isn't an absolute need to reinstall vista unless you're not very tech savvy. if you are there are many solutions to this problem via the recovery environment. if you are not take assasin's advice and just set boot priority to favor the cd/dvdrom drive and reinstall

 

thanks guys, yeah i just decided to restore everything since i didnt have many documents and stuff on it, but thanks anyways