No boot device found
When you turn the computer on and you get the message "No bootable device found" check to see if the following is the cause of the issue.
- Blank or corrupted hard drive
- Bootable CD is in the secondary drive
- Disk is not bootable
- Disk is a DVD and you have in in a non DVD drive
- boot order is not set correctly in the BIOS
- Windows CD may say "No hard drive found"
The hard drive has to be properly setup for the system to boot to the hard drive. Generally, an operating system of some sort is usually installed. Operating Systems include MS-DOS, Windows, Linux, and other platforms. If you had just installed a new hard drive, you will need to set it up with the appropriate software.
Bootable CD is in the secondary drive
Most systems will only boot to the primary drive. If you have two CD-ROM drives, you will need to put the bootable disk in the primary drive (which is usually the top drive on a system, but depending on the layout of the computer case, it may be laid out different)
The hard drive or CD that you are trying to boot to has to bootable. Must have a master boot record (MBR).
A regular CD-ROM drive, CD-R and CD-RW drives will not read a DVD disk.
Note: Some computer manufactures install the DVD drive as the secondary drive. This usually doesn't cause a problem, but windows install is getting larger and larger. Microsoft is starting to use DVD disks for the operating system. The Windows XP Media Center software is on a DVD. If you need to reinstall the operating system on a machine that is configured this way, you may have to do one of the two following options.
- Turn the primary drive off in the BIOS (see manufacturer for instructions and details on the BIOS) (Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't)
- Open the computer, disconnect the primary and connect the end of the cable to the DVD drive. Then when your done, go back and reset the cables. (or just make the DVD drive the primary and the other drive the secondary).
Check to see what the boot order is. You may have a device listed in the boot order that is not installed. It can cause the system to give the error.
Windows CD may say "No hard drive found"
If the motherboard has the capability to use SATA hard drives, you may have different options to choose from. Some systems allows you to choose from AHCI and ATA (The wording may different on your system) If the SATA is set to AHCI, windows CD may not see the hard drive. You may have to change it to ATA (see the manufacturer to see if this applies your system and how it is listed).