There is one problem hidden behind this issue and there are two entirely opposite ways to solve it: Is the machine able to see the disk where it was intended to boot? One minute in the BIOS will tell you both what your solution should be, as well as whether you have risked anything with respect to your files.
When you are inside the BIOS, look up the drive. If it’s there as an option but won’t boot → the problem lies in the software layer (which is usually very recoverable). If it doesn’t show up on the list → there’s something wrong with your hard drive or its connector; this will require some type of physical repair.
When you press the power button, the firmware is awakened by the power-on signal, begins to take inventory of the available hardware, and then proceeds through the boot list in an attempt to find a disk that contains an operating system capable of being booted, checking each item on the list to ensure that they contain the boot signature and boot files that indicate “start me”. The message displayed on your monitor is simply the firmware’s indication that the search for a bootable OS resulted in failure. Note what was not mentioned in the message: no mention of your documents, your photographs, or the contents of the entire hard drive. The search for a usable ignition failed; therefore, the remaining parts of the vehicle (including the file system) were never inspected.
Don’t mess with the BIOS fork until after you’ve booted away all the annoying pretenders: remove all of the USB sticks and external drives (computers will happily attempt to boot off an empty memory stick and then quit) and, on a desktop, unplug and plug back in the drive’s power cable and data cable; a loose connection will give you just this exact error message.
If the hard drive appears under its correct name and at the correct size, the problem is probably in the software: a boot priority set incorrectly (try putting the internal drive first and see what happens next; it’s a free fix, and more common than you’d think), boot files are mangled due to either a power loss or being shut down while still running, or there was so much damage done to the partition table that the BIOS doesn’t even recognise a system on that particular disk. All three options leave your data exactly where it was. The safe way to go: If your data is important, get it backed up before attempting repairs around it. This drive can be read from a bootable USB or another computer. Also, it can be professionally imaged. Our missing partition repair will rebuild your partition map from a read-only backup image. While repairing first is tempting (and usually survivable) since your drive is good, it would be playing Russian roulette with your files if they cannot be replaced.
If the firmware’s own hardware listing does not include the drive (or lists it with a confusing name or shows it as “0 GB”), then it has never lost its boot files. The issue here is that the drive simply will not respond to being seen. For a failed hard drive, this generally indicates bad electronic, mechanical, or firmware failure. On the other hand, an SSD almost always fails due to a faulty controller. In both cases there is absolutely nothing software can do if the computer cannot even locate the drive to read from or write to. So the single viable option is to shut the computer down (and leave it shut) to avoid spinning up further damage from the failing mechanics or crashing again the already-failed firmware. On the bench, these types of drives can be coaxed back into a readable state (for the purpose of imaging) just long enough to pull the files off of the image, which we call our ‘drive not recognised’ service.
Be sure to understand this warning regardless of where you go: reinstalling Windows is not a recovery method. That is because when you reinstall Windows you build yourself a new bootable machine, and install a brand new operating system across your entire disk, which clears the problem and wipes out those files you’re trying to get back. Therefore, machine first or data first is really a valid choice, but nobody should have to make that decision accidentally based on what they select from a setup menu.
This indicates the machine was unable to locate a valid starting point (a number of things can cause this same error including a bad hard drive), and has many possible causes. The BIOS fork below will sort through the list in about a minute and identify what is causing this problem, either something as simple as a setting, a cable, scrambled boot files or a lost partition map, or as serious as a failing piece of hardware.
No, by design the tool writes over some boot related items, but does not touch anything else such as documents. However, there are two practical considerations here. First, if the physical health of your hard drive is deteriorating, multiple attempts at repairing the issue can be particularly taxing and accelerate its demise. Second, if the repair tool cannot complete a single cycle (i.e. it appears stuck), it may indicate the problem lies further down the line than just within the boot process itself. A reasonable first attempt is fine when troubleshooting on a seemingly good drive. Multiple, repetitive attempts however, are not.
Both, by different paths. Most of the time hard drives end up here because of mechanical or sector errors in the boot section, whereas SSDs generally stop booting because of a faulty controller or a firmware fault that drops the whole drive off the boot list at once. Regardless of how they get here, both types will appear to read the same when run through the BIOS test: listing as “listed-but-not-booting” versus being completely absent. A missing SSD is a true lab case, with the data typically remaining intact behind a failed controller.
Free diagnostic on the bench within 48 hours, drives imaged before any repair and quote written before any work, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data.