"No Boot Device" sometimes, Load to windows and crash sometimes?

[jmflu]

My friend has a Dell Inspiron laptop maybe 5 years old. I'm not sure the exact model but has an intel I7 and an aftermarket GPU (ie non intel).

He noticed that sometimes when he would try to start it up, it would boot to a dos looking screen saying "No Boot Device" and would not boot up.

Sometimes it would boot right into windows fine.

I formatted the HD and re-installed windows to see if that would fix it but a few minutes after I re-isntalled windows while installing drivers, it crashed to blue screen and then I noticed the "No Boot Device" error.

It is weird, sometimes it boots into windows and will crash, others it seems it cant detect the Hard Drive.

Is this a fixable problem? Any more info I could give please let me know.

 

[Johnabcs1]

The hard drive is failing. Replace it and it should be good.(Personal experience, lol)

 

[SBMfromLA]

How many hard drives are installed in the computer? I'm thinking it could simply be a software issue.

Wait.. I just re-read the question... it's a laptop so I'm assuming it just has a single drive inside. Does your friend have the original Windows DVD that came with the computer? If so, try booting off the DVD and running the "Repair Windows Startup" utility that's on the disk.. It might resolve the problem.

 

[Chicano]

Sounds like the HDD is close ending it's lifetime. Install Hard Disk Sentinel to see what are its health and performance, bad sectors, etc. If the graphic results are in the safe zone (green to yellow) and health a reasonably high %, its still usable... and even when the graph is in the red and % is not so low, they can still be used for some time but the boot issues may still be ocasional though less often so if it turned out to be low in left lifetime, and you want to keep using it as long as possible, I'd suggest making regular backups just in case... A pass with Flobo Hard Disk Repair followed by the Low Level format Tool, may take the Health graph back into the yellow and prolong the remaining lifetime.


Hard Disk Sentinel
http/www.hdsentinel.com/thanks_for_downloading.php?file=http/www.harddisksentinel.com/hdsentinel_setup.zip

Flobo Hard Disk Repair 6.2
http/best-flobo-hard-disk-repair.soft32.com/

Low Level Format Tool
http/hddguru.com/software/HDD-LLF-Low-Level-Format-Tool/