Computer wont boot anymore some help maybe please

[leon]

Hi Guys it seems once again i'm having some issues with this DeskTop of mine.
One day it is working just fine and now it just wont boot up at all, maybe someone could advise a solution or at least tell me what this means.

As soon as i turn it on it comes up with this and that is as far as it will go.

It Says on a Black Screen.

Reboot and Select proper Boot device or insert Boot Media in selected Boot Device and press any key

Now i have no idea of what to do here, some assistance please and how i may at least advance past this point, how can i reboot the machine if it wont go past this point :shrug:

Thank you.

Leon :thumbsup:

[StuTodd]

Copy and search "Reboot and Select proper Boot device or insert Boot Media in selected Boot Device and press any key" and let google guide you.

Probably easier than asking here and waiting hours for a reply...

[Ukastronomer]

Impossible to answer without knowing what operating system you have

[Ukastronomer]

One simple workaround is

1. If you have more than one hard drive (I have 6 for example) disconnect all but c.

2. Boot into safe mode, print this off you can do no harm

https://www.howtogeek.com/107511/how-to-boot-into-safe-mode-on-windows-8-the-easy-way/

when in safe mode just hit power restart it will then boot normally

If that does not work print this off

https://www.google.com/search?q=Reboot+and+Select+proper+B oot+device+or+insert+Boot+Media+in+ selected+Boot+Device+and+press+any+ key&rlz=1C1CHBF_enGB712GB712&oq=Reboot+and+Select+proper+Boot+de vice+or+insert+Boot+Media+in+select ed+Boot+Device+and+press+any+key&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#kpvalbx=_B75bXt6WI5K4gQaR3JVg39

I doubt it a lot but very rarely C may not be seen in the BIOS and may need to be reset, DON'T play with the BIOS unless you know what version you have and know what uyou are doing, it is dead easy really but can scare some

[Ukastronomer]

posted in error

[highlander2287]

It is not finding your hard drive or operating system. Sometimes when a computer boots it can be done from the disc which has the operating system on it, inserted in the computer and it boots from there. That is what it means by boot media. The computer would boot from your main hard drive which has the operating system on it. You would need to get into the bios setup to check that the computer is looking at booting from your c drive and not some other drive. It is also possible the operating system is not being recognised due to corrupt files. It may need to be reinstalled or possibly you can run a recovery on it. Do you happen to have the original disc for the operating system that is on your computer. If so put it in and restart the computer and see if it will start from there.

[turbo_pascale]

It's also possible that your C:\ (Boot) drive may simply have become disconnected physically - check both ends of the SATA cable (drive and motherboard).

Otherwise, the hard drive may have been on the way out (was it making any noises?) Had any power spikes?

[leon]

Thanks Guys I will work with what you have suggested, It is running Win 8.1 has two drives in it and I do have the original OS disc.

I think it is trying to boot from the second drive that does not have the OS on it.

I am really stumped here and am not very confident with wah i am doing but i will plod along and see if i can get it sorted.

Leon

[Ukastronomer]

Just what I said ;)

.

[Ukastronomer]

TAKE CARE when using the windows disk, don't rush as it may ask to RE INSTALL windows and that will over write the drive content and you will lose all, use safe mode first

[leon]

Thanks Jeremy but the disc wont even run at all and it keeps on coming back to the recovery options in the blue box that you suggested, and they don't want to do much either, I might leave it for a bit as I have been playing with it for hours now.

Really not sure what to do here, but i will keep at it.

Thanks again.

Leon

[leon]

Just an idea Jeremy, I have two hhd's in the desktop what if i disconnected the C drive, plugged in the second one and reinstalled Win 8.1 on that drive as it really is not much use at present and is actually brand new.

I know the C Drive is OK but it just wont boot from there and I cant get it to do so, I am sure if you were here it would be fixed in 5 minutes.

I have everything backed up and do have the programs that i use as well so nothing will be lost just some time i suppose.

Then maybe in the future when i get back to Victoria in 6 weeks my Computer friend who is excellent at repairs i might add, could get the machine to boot from the the C Drive later on.

Yes/no ?? :shrug:

Leon :thumbsup:

[multiweb]

Is this the PC you did a clone of the C: drive? If it is it could be that you have now two boot drives in the machine, so you'd need to disconnect the clone to boot. Check your BIOS as well. Might have switched to the cloned drive as primary disk when you rebooted.

[leon]

Yea Marc it is, I did get a message that there was a signature clash and then things went south from there.
I have tried everything suggested and nothing seems to help and really am at a loss of what to do.
I will just have to keep bugging you guys until I get it sorted, or as i said take it to my Computer man in Ballarat when i get back there which is not till mid April.

Thank mate.

Leon

[multiweb]

Are you abolutely sure you cloned the correct drive and didn't blank your original boot drive? Otherwise you have two empty partitions in your system and it can't find one to boot from.

If you do have two valid boot drives then unplug the clone (remove it physically) then reboot. If it boots you're good to go. If it doesn't then remove the drive and put the clones instead then reboot again. If you have a valid boot drive it should find it and boot automatically.

If you have another drive in your machine like a data drive then you might have to go in the BIOS setup and select the boot drive manually. Maybe it's trying to boot from the second drive.

Try that first. In any case unplug the clone from the PC.

[leon]

Marc it seems I need to go BIOS setup and find the drive I can get to that setup but cant find the boot menu so i can see what drive i need to allocate as the one to boot from.

Nothing is really working, but i can assure you the new drive was cloned from the original and was not mixed up

Thanks leon

[multiweb]

When you reboot before the screen comes up press F8 repeatedly and it should bring your BIOS screen where you can go to the HD section and select the boot order.

[leon]

Well Marc thanks again for your assistance, mate I have been to BIOS and back, been to Boot menu now as well, I did work it out and Googled some stuff an pressed F,buttons all afternoon.

Anyway there is no way this thing is going to boot off the hard drive even though it brings it up in Boot menu, and i can see it, now all it wants to do is re/install Win 8.i

I think I might just do that on the second drive and start fresh, but will the original still be bootable one day when a pro can look at it.

It is disabled now and not plugged in and no power to it as well, what do you reckon.

I have everything backed up and all the programs i use ready to go so it will only be a bit of time to load to this drive.

So the question is this if i take out the original C Drive and put it away could a professional computer person put it back and make it bootable again one day in the near future, because i know it is a good drive and has all i want on it.

Thanks Marc.:)

Leon:thumbsup:

[multiweb]

If you unplug all the drives but for one it has to boot from it. If it can't there's a problem with the drive.

[Ukastronomer]

If the CD/DVD will; not run then you have to tell it to in the BIOS

BOOT from CD/DVD

go to BIOS (hold down delete on booting)
GO to BOOT
Set boot from CD/DVD
Save and exit

[leon]

Ok Thanks Jeremy and Marc this is my last option i reckon I am quite sick of it all, and over it i might add.

Leon

[leon]

You have all been very helpful however your suggestion didn't work either Jeremy, I think Marc maybe right the disk has cracked it.
Well I have a new HHD that i tried to clone could i just format this drive and load a new Win 8.1 maybe, and if so any suggestions please.

Leon

[Outcast]

Leon,

I may have missed this in the thread but, have you tried booting from the clone?

Cheers

[bobson]

Leon,

If your BIOS can see "C" drive that usually means its OK but if it cannot boot from it as in your message then something is wrong with MBR=MasterBootRecord. Which can be easily fixed since you have installation CD/DVD.
As others suggested, you have to set up in your BIOS to start from CD/DVD and then follow the prompts.
Step by step instruction with pics here, scroll down to Win8,1:

https://neosmart.net/wiki/fix-mbr/

Dont get confused with this:

bootrec /FixMbr bootrec /FixBoot
bootrec /ScanOs bootrec /RebuildBcd!!

It can be confusing for beginners! There are 4 commands there and each one executed in order:

bootrec /FixMbr Press: ENTER
bootrec /FixBoot Press: ENTER
bootrec /ScanOS Press: ENTER
bootrec /RebuildBcd Press: ENTER

Useful short video how to get to command prompt and type commands: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3gZdD9JX-o

[Ukastronomer]

Agreed, as I said you have to go into the BIOS and set the FIRST boot to be from CD/DVD in fact many computers are set NOT to boot from CD

You can set most to boot from anything even a memory card
.

[redbeard]

Hi Leon,


Disconnect the cloned drive and leave the original, never leave the cloned drive connected after cloning.


Then, boot to your original Windows installation DVD disk and choose the repair option, that will repair any boot sectors for you the easy way. See https://appuals.com/how-to-perform-startup-repair-in-windows-88-1-and-10/ (https://appuals.com/how-to-perform-startup-repair-in-windows-88-1-and-10/)

Ignore the ad's on that page.





and choose
Method 2: Perform a Startup Repair using installation media

Seeing as your original disk was working fine, that is all you should need to do. If your computer does not boot from the disk after setting the boot order in the BIOS, then there is usually a button you can press when the computer starts up that takes you directly to the boot order menu instead of having to go into the BIOS.



Cheers,
Damien.

[leon]

Wow more good stuff to think about, yep, I will surely have a go at that, you guys have been so helpful, thank you/

Leon

[Sunfish]

I can see you have already been there with good answers.

[leon]

Hi Guys, it seems a frustrating end to what i can do to get this HHD up and running .
I have exhausted all avenues and tried all your suggestions to the letter with no results.
When I was doing number 4 and 5 in this tutorial listed below the command prompt window showed that everything was healthy on the HHD please see below.
So I am at a loss of what to do now.

Thanks for all your support and help.

Leon:thumbsup:

https://neosmart.net/wiki/the-drive-where-windows-is-installed-is-locked/#Fix_3Check_disk_for_errors_with_ch kdsk_utility

I cant even Refresh and/or Reset the thing.

When I try this is what comes on the screen.

Unable to reset your PC. A required drive partion is missing.

and to repair your PC, it says

The drive where Windows is installed is locked, unlock the drive and try again.

[mynameiscd]

Hi Leon,
I've had problems like this after a clone rebuild.
I've got a few Acronis programs that let you boot to a CD and then search the disk to see what data is on it, and where the partitions are and if they are primary or not.
The OS has to be on a primary disk or at least the MBR.
I've had a problem fixed by just making the disk primary and it booted up.
Another problem can be the MBR and sometimes the pointers to the MBR.
When the disk is initiated the in the very first few bites are pointers to the MBR. If this gets corrupted then the disk keeps spinning and won't find the MBR.
It could also the MBR is copied from one disk to another but the partition tables are different.
It's trying to find C/windows which isn't at the right address.
I've manually written the partiton tables to look at the right place once when I got really stuck and it worked.
I normally use partition manager for this and Acronis programs for backup, repair and clone disks
Good luck.
Cheers
Andy.

[leon]

Thanks Andy, looks a bit to technical for me i reckon, however much appreciated.

Leon

[multiweb]

:eyepop: me too :lol:

[mynameiscd]

Hi Leon,
It looks real daunting but normally this gets done automatically but sometimes the partiton is not correct and the MBR is missing or the pointers are wrong.
You should check if it's an active primary partiton first and you can download a free partition manager for this.
Then you might have to rewrite the Master Boot Record but this will only work if there is a windows directory on that primary, active disk.
Good luck.
Cheers
Andy

[Sunfish]

I have also found ,replacing and moving hard drives around as I seem to do, that on some older machines the cable selection and particular site on the board of connection is important. Some machines just don’t seem to work with a particular location and cable connections for a boot drive.

There may be something in the recovery partition and bios recovery systems which also overrides your manual selections.

I have had the surprise of two win os boot drives in the machine and the Hp system asking which drive I would like to boot to each time. That was a bonus.

They always seem to come good and boot.

[Sunfish]

But failing that, I agree with a Marc, yes , plug in the new drive and boot to the original installation media and start over . You will probably be able to see the data on the old drive as a slave once you have completed the new install and plugged it back in. I have lots of what are now slave drives in several computers.

[leon]

Good on ya ray, today is the day of fix one way or the other, I have many suggestions form all you good people to ponder over, thank you all.

leon