Aaahhh... I didn't know that particular method of frying a drive... I guess I've been lucky so far!
To me that particular statement reads like a BIOS message (the first screen does look like DOS booting) that is telling the user that there is no operating system present. That could be because of a multitude of things. I've seen it turn up when I left a USB drive without any OS on it in place, having switched the boot order to start with USB for some reason. On a system of that vintage, it could be because it is looking at empty A: or D: drives (floppy/CD) first, the IDE drive isn't recognised, the drive is corrupt, the MBR is missing, the software is misbehaving.... and so on. I just thought of another one: with Win 3.11 you had to start Windows from Autoexec.bat if you wanted to boot straight to it, so if that file is missing, or if the PATH parameter isn't set correctly, that could also give you some sort of error (although I would expect a 'file not found' for that one).
I am enjoying the trip down memory lane and all these old computer tricks though
