Reboot and select proper boot device error

[HenryChinaski]

So a nice surprise upon starting my laptop today after it having worked fine for all of yesterday. It goes straight into the message “reboot and select proper boot device”

Tried to reboot a few times but got the same error so loaded up into my BIOS. I thought that I would just need to adjust the boot order but when I go to boot prioritises there are only two entries which are realtek or something. Neither my hard drive, or DVD drive appear in the list as bootable options.

I thought that perhaps my hard drive had become disconnected so I opened up the case, unplugged and replugged my hard drive. I booted up again but the same issue persists and it still doesn’t appear in my boot prioritises.

Can anyone advise me on next steps to get this working again?

Thank you in advance.

 

[BadActor]

It appears that your hard drive has failed. Now would be a good time to upgrade with a cheap SSD. You might try to test the drive on another computer using a USB to SATA adapter just to be sure that's the problem.

 

[HenryChinaski]

It appears that your hard drive has failed. Now would be a good time to upgrade with a cheap SSD. You might try to test the drive on another computer using a USB to SATA adapter just to be sure that's the problem.

Thank you for this. Just a question; if it's a hard drive issue, why is it that the USB and other devices are not showing up either?

 

[BadActor]

Unless you have bootable media in the DVD or USB ports, they won't show up.

 

[HenryChinaski]

Aha, thank you BadActor. It seems like I should maybe give bootable media a go - the thing that puts me off is all the steps to make the usb bootable, formatting etc. From memory it takes ages?

 

[BadActor]

Not really so difficult. You can use software such as Rufus to create bootable media. If you happen to have a Linux bootable disk or a rescue CD/DVD, you could use them also to make sure there isn't a problem with the motherboard itself.

https/rufus.akeo.ie/

 

[HenryChinaski]

Not really so difficult. You can use software such as Rufus to create bootable media. If you happen to have a Linux bootable disk or a rescue CD/DVD, you could use them also to make sure there isn't a problem with the motherboard itself.

https/rufus.akeo.ie/

Ok so now I'm seriously confused. I was messing around in BIOS and chancedmy arm by disabling UEFI boot or something similar. I then selected an option which ways 'start/launch using fileshell or something and it has booted up normally.
I'm so confused; what does this mean? :s

 

[BadActor]

Had you changed anything in the Bios before? Not really sure what's going on now, but it's still possible the HDD is going. An HDD can boot intermittently. As long as you have your system up, try running Crystaldisk (Standard Edition) and checking your drive health.

http/crystalmark.info/download/index-e.html

 

[HenryChinaski]

Had you changed anything in the Bios before? Not really sure what's going on now, but it's still possible the HDD is going. An HDD can boot intermittently. As long as you have your system up, try running Crystaldisk (Standard Edition) and checking your drive health.

http/crystalmark.info/download/index-e.html

Thank you for this. Crystaldisk says the drive health is 'Good'.
Sort of scared that if I restart or something I won't be able to get back in! So I kinda feel like I should make the most of 'being in' to do other checks. Don't know if chkdsk is supposed to be of any use? Hmmm

I can't think of anything specific I changed but I did go into every single setting in search of something to change so definitely possible.

 

[BadActor]

If Crystaldisk is saying the drive health is good and knowing that you had been in the Bios previously, I would say that everything is probably OK and you had just inadvertently changed a setting.