Boot device not found Hard disk (3F0) in HP Pavilion g7-2340dx

[Justanotherclay]

Recently I received the lovely 3F0 error on my Laptop. Several programs had froze and I couldn't access task manager so I decided a hard reset was my best option after which I was greeted with what seems to be a common screen among these laptops

"Boot Device Not Found
Please install an operating system on your hard disk.
Hard Disk - (3F0)
F2 System Diagnostics

For more information, please visit: www.hp/go/techcenter/startup"

I popped the HDD out and put it into my desktop and ran a HDD check. Most sections of the disk appeared to be unreadable, so logically, I concluded the HDD must be dead or very close to it. Before I threw in the towel, I figured I could at least try and boot from my windows install disk. The laptop came bundled with Windows 8, but I only had a windows 7 disk on hand (shouldn't be a problem). Now I initially tried my 32-bit disk, which straight up did not give me the option to boot from. I then tried my 64-bit disk. The option to boot from disk would appear, but I would get passed the "Windows is Loading Files" screen only to get stuck at the logo splash screen.

At this point I finally broke down and bought a new HDD. I put the thing in and attempted to boot from disk only to have the same problem. As a shot in the dark, I put the HDD in my desktop and attempted to partition it from there. After I made sure it had a working copy of windows on it, I put it back in the laptop in hopes of a boot, but I was still receiving the same problems, 3f0 error screen and unable to boot from disk.

So basically I'm asking a handful of questions here.
1) Would trying a different windows disk perhaps solve my booting from disk issue? I really hope not, because the hoops I'll have to jump through to get one will be painful.
2) From what I've found, two other major causes for this problem are a bad drive data cable or a bad SATA controller on the mobo. Do I count my losses and start testing the motherboard or trying to find a replacement data cable?
3) Finally (and I hope it's this one) am I just missing something? I'm not as familiar with laptops as I am with desktops, perhaps I'm missing something that's staring me in the face.

Keep in mind, this was a refurbished laptop. I'm almost positive it did not come with the included HP recovery disks that it would have come with straight from the factory. If in the off chance that I'm wrong, those disks are at my apartment, which I'm currently away from for at least another month.
I'm in the dark here, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Specs:
AMD Dual-Core A6-4400M 2.7GHz,
4GB DDR3

 

[house70]

I would try this: get a bootable HDD utility disk (anything that reads/access the HDD would be fine, but I would prefer something that will allow me to wipe the HDD in case I need to restart the install process), pop the new HDD in the laptop and boot from that utility disk, then try to run the utility from it on that HDD. If it works, the controller/cable are fine. If not, therein lies the problem.
If it works, I would wipe the HDD and launch the OS install. Make sure the HDD is visible in BIOS before that. If that still won't go, I would get the recovery disks you mentioned and do a system restore from them.

 

[Omkumar2311]

I have also the same problem. And i can't boot from my usb for Windows installation. Please help? I think the bios settings has been changed?? Please help??