Member Avatar for evec

Laptop working fine one day, next day went to turn it on and will not boot up...says "No bootable devices--strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utility." When I hit F1 get same message and F2 just gives me info about system...what do I do?

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The error string and the F1/F2 behavior reported by make the first job simple: find out whether the machine can "see" the hard drive at all. and pointed toward external diagnostics; the practical next steps are to isolate hardware from software and to protect any important data before doing repairs.

Enter the BIOS/Setup and look for the storage device listing (model number and size). If the drive is not listed, treat it as a hardware problem: power down, remove AC and battery, open the service hatch and visually inspect the drive and connector (ESD precautions). Gently reseat the drive and try again. If you hear grinding/clicking or smell burning during a brief power test, stop — that is a mechanical/electronics failure and risks data loss.

If the BIOS does list the drive, the failure is likely at the filesystem/boot level or a failing drive that is still detectable. Remove the drive and attach it to another computer with a USB-to-IDE adapter or enclosure, or boot the laptop from a live environment on USB to check SMART status and copy files off. If SMART shows many reallocated sectors or read errors, plan to replace the drive and recover data from the image. If SMART looks okay, repair the OS boot structures from the appropriate recovery tools rather than replacing hardware.

If reseating and testing in another machine shows the original drive dead but a known-good donor drive works in the Inspiron, replace the drive. If neither drive works in the Inspiron, the motherboard/IDE channel may be faulty. For valuable data or noisy drives, consider professional recovery rather than running long destructive tests.

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Member Avatar for mechbas

Insert a floppy or cd that you KNOW works and try to boot the machine. You may have to edit the BIOS to enable the floppy/cd for FIRST bootable divice.
short term: corrupt BIOS and/or invalid boot sector on HD.

Member Avatar for dcc

If you know what make your hdd is you can go to the manufacturers site and download their diagnostic tool. Most of these require you to transfer this to a floppy to boot from. You may need to set the boot order in your BIOS to see the floppy drive first.

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