Boot Device error 1

[Leenie]

Good afternoon.
I've got a pc with the following error on the screen:

Reboot and select proper boot devide or insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key

What does this mean and what do I do?

Thanks.

Colleen Gayle Lane
Milton Public Library

 

[bcastner]

Look for a floppy or CD in the drives.

 

[Leenie]

There's nothing in either.

Colleen Gayle Lane
Milton Public Library

 

[Mthales]

It means whatever device it is trying to boot from doesn't contain the files that it needs to be able to boot - the usual cause for this is (as bcastner said) that you have just left a floppy or CD in the drive that is not bootable. But since you say these are empty then you need to check your BIOS settings to see where you are trying to boot from - if you have more than one IDE hard drive installed it may be trying to boot from one that does not contain your operating system.

M

 

[Leenie]

Okay the Bios Boot Device Priority says:

1st - Floppy
2nd - Disabled

The only options there are floppy and CD-RW.

In the Bios Main Menu it says this:

Primary IDE Master - not detected
Primary IDE Slave - no detected
Secondary IDE Master - not detected
Secondary IDE Slave - CD-RW
Third - not detected
Fourth - not detected

Colleen Gayle Lane
Milton Public Library

 

[Leenie]

Okay, this is weird. Now out of the blue on the 5th or so time rebooting the hard drive shows up! Weird. I don't trust this pc. I'm sure it will happen again.

Colleen Gayle Lane
Milton Public Library

 

[gpalmer711]

You are right to worry. It is not correct for this to happen and is likely due to one of 4 problems.

1) Faulty Hard Drive
2) Faulty Cables
3) Faulty Motherboard
4) Faulty or insufficient Power Supply

In your situation I would take a imediate backup of any important data.

Load the recovery console and run a chkdsk /r as per

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307654

Download and run the free diagnostic utility that can be found on your Hard Drive manufacturers website.

These should at least assure you as to whether the problem is with the drive or not. If these show up clean then you will likely need to call a technician if the problem happens again.

Greg Palmer
Free Software for Adminstrators

http://www.palmersoft.co.uk

 

[joebloeonthego]

I had a similar problem, and it was power supply.

 

[Leenie]

Thanks gpalmer.... I'll try your suggestions. I do have a good ghost image of the pc and it's almost new and under warranty so we're covered if it happens again.

And Joe..., I'll definitely check the power supply first thing next time as we've had power problems in the past as well.

Thanks again.

Colleen Gayle Lane
Milton Public Library