A simple fix or off to the technician?

[OneMoreFarang]

Just now, ravip said:

1. Did this 1st occur after you did a update, install a new software,  a PC crash or any other out of the normal incident? 

2. How old is the PC/ Hard Drive? 

3. Was the PC running unusually slow before this issue? 

Sorry all this doesn't matter at all. It's clear that the BIOS doesn't show any boot device. That is the problem. It has nothing to do with updates, etc. 

[Thailand]

2 minutes ago, ravip said:

1. Did this 1st occur after you did a update, install a new software,  a PC crash or any other out of the normal incident? 

2. How old is the PC/ Hard Drive? 

3. Was the PC running unusually slow before this issue? 

 

1)No

2) 7 years

3) Yes

[ravip]

1 minute ago, OneMoreFarang said:

Sorry all this doesn't matter at all. It's clear that the BIOS doesn't show any boot device. That is the problem. It has nothing to do with updates, etc. 

TBH I have personnaly experienced this same issue with situations I've mentioned above.

[Thailand]

6 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

Sorry all this doesn't matter at all. It's clear that the BIOS doesn't show any boot device. That is the problem. It has nothing to do with updates, etc. 

 

[ravip]

3 minutes ago, Thailand said:

 

1)No

2) 7 years

3) Yes

I have a strong feeling your HDD is defective. 

But further investigation is necessary to confirm. 

[OneMoreFarang]

1 minute ago, ravip said:

TBH I have personnaly experienced this same issue with situations I've mentioned above.

Did you follow the thread. The computer does not recognize any boot device. What you describe happens after the computer found a boot device.

[OneMoreFarang]

2 minutes ago, Thailand said:

 

An installed Windows does not boot from a DVD or a SD Reader. There must be a SSD, HDD or M.2!

[Thailand]

7 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

An installed Windows does not boot from a DVD or a SD Reader. There must be a SSD, HDD or M.2!

Where? 

[tgw]

I agree that the problem is that the HDD which was used for boot has gone away / is not recognized as a boot device.

 

This happened to me in the past.

Sometimes a gentle shaking / tap on the side of the computer would temporarily solve the problem, giving enough time to make a backup of the data.

Disconnecting and reconnecting the drive may also help.

 

What I would do is go to the section of the BIOS listing storage devices and see if the HDD is listed there.

 

If it's not listed, I would try the reconnect thing once and shake/tap thing a handful of times. I had good success using this method (>50%).

 

If nothing helps, the disk is dead and needs to be replaced.

 

If the drive is listed in the BIOS but not bootable, you can try to start your computer using a USD stick. You will need to install a system on the USB stick. Once the system is booted, you might be lucky and able to access the data on  the damaged HDD to copy it.

 

If the drive is dead or not accessible, the data can be recovered if the disk is brought to a data recovery shop.

 

 

[OneMoreFarang]

Just now, Thailand said:

Where? 

In your list of boot devices must be a HDD, SSD or M.2. 

If there is none of that in that list that means the computer does not recognize any of above.

And when the computer does not recognize any boot device that means.

a) there is no boot device in your PC - unlikely, because it worked before

b) the boot device is defect - that happens, sometimes earlier, sometimes after many years.

c) there is a problem with one or more of all those connections. To fix that problem you can open the PC and try all connections. Or you slap the computer and all those connections might connect again. Believe me, that is what many professionals do.

[OneMoreFarang]

2 minutes ago, tgw said:

I agree that the problem is that the HDD which was used for boot has gone away / is not recognized as a boot device.

 

This happened to me in the past.

Sometimes a gentle shaking / tap on the side of the computer would temporarily solve the problem, giving enough time to make a backup of the data.

Disconnecting and reconnecting the drive may also help.

 

What I would do is go to the section of the BIOS listing storage devices and see if the HDD is listed there.

 

If it's not listed, I would try the reconnect thing once and shake/tap thing a handful of times. I had good success using this method (>50%).

 

If nothing helps, the disk is dead and needs to be replaced.

 

If the drive is listed in the BIOS but not bootable, you can try to start your computer using a USD stick. You will need to install a system on the USB stick. Once the system is booted, you might be lucky and able to access the data on  the damaged HDD to copy it.

 

If the drive is dead or not accessible, the data can be recovered if the disk is brought to a data recovery shop.

Any device which can be theoretically be a boot device will be shown in that list - if it was not manually and deliberately disabled.

A brand new blank hard disk will also show because in theory it is bootable. Obviously the boot from a blank disk would still not work because there is nothing on that disk. But the BIOS does not know that.

[tgw]

4 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

Any device which can be theoretically be a boot device will be shown in that list - if it was not manually and deliberately disabled.

A brand new blank hard disk will also show because in theory it is bootable. Obviously the boot from a blank disk would still not work because there is nothing on that disk. But the BIOS does not know that.

 

yes, you are correct!

 

I forgot that detail, I haven't seen such a screen in ages because of my setup, I have been running redundant SSD as RAID 1 on all my computers for over ten years, so I never ran into such an issue again.

 

I had a couple of drives fail before and one time recovery was costly.

[Peterw42]

OP, is there any history what you were doing prior to this fault ?

Playing around with partitions, renaming drives, running a "optimize" computer program, virus removal  , trying to cleanup/delete/make space etc.

 

[poskat]

1 hour ago, OneMoreFarang said:

There is another solution:

Switch off your PC. Then bang your hand against a side. Then switch it on again.

If you are lucky all will work again. The reason is that this "fixes" lose connections.

My neighbor, the flight engineer, told me on planes they call it "technical tap". Really!

otherwise known as percussive maintenance

[FritsSikkink]

1 hour ago, OneMoreFarang said:

Try! It's my job to fix computers and you won't believe how often that technical tap works.

You should have a bit better advice then

[NCC1701A]

your computer is showing the bios setup because it can't find your hard drive (C:)

your computer is seven years old. that is most likely why your drive failed.

if you backed up your computer regularly then you are ok for your data.

at your level of knowledge you should go to a shop and have them install a new drive.

Maybe a SSD (solid state drive) which would make your old computer run a little faster. if you have any disks that came with your computer or your windows product key take them with you to the shop. and back up drive if any. 

good luck. you will most likely have a new install of windows with none of our old data if no backup or if shop cant get old drive to work one last time. professional data recovery from old drive would be next step. 

this is a very simple process for a shop to do and should take 15 minutes to change out drive. one hour to install windows. take the old drive away from them after it is out of your computer to protect any sensitive data even if "not working". 

 

[lopburi3]

30 minutes ago, Thailand said:

Where? 

If just an old computer suspect it is time to see a computer shop - have them install and SSD to replace defective HDD and then try to recover data you need from the HDD (may only take a hit or freeze but also likely not to be cost effective for anything more).  We assume you do not have backup drive available.  A change to SSD is not expensive and will greatly increase speed - and if you need more storage than the SSD size (big costs more) an external HDD drive is not costly and could be used for backups in the future.

[KannikaP]

31 minutes ago, tgw said:

If the drive is listed in the BIOS but not bootable, you can try to start your computer using a USD stick. You will need to install a system on the USB stick. 

How would you do that if the PC is not booting.

You would need another PC. Always good to have a bootable USB stick around.

[lopburi3]

2 minutes ago, KannikaP said:

How would you do that if the PC is not booting.

You would need another PC. Always good to have a bootable USB stick around.

You set the bios to boot from USB - basic option AFAIK.

Light goes on:  you mean he can not download the operating system without a computer - bad brain day.

[Peterw42]

2 minutes ago, lopburi3 said:

You set the bios to boot from USB - basic option AFAIK.

if you have a bootable usb handy, otherwise OP would need another computer to make one

[OneMoreFarang]

1 minute ago, Peterw42 said:

if you have a bootable usb handy, otherwise OP would need another computer to make one

A Windows DVD would also work.

[KannikaP]

2 minutes ago, lopburi3 said:

You set the bios to boot from USB - basic option AFAIK.

Light goes on:  you mean he can not download the operating system without a computer - bad brain day.

No need for insult. No, you cannot download an operating system if your PC is not up and running and connected to the internet.

Maybe if he had an original Windows DVD it could be possible.

[OneMoreFarang]

8 minutes ago, FritsSikkink said:

1 hour ago, OneMoreFarang said:

Try! It's my job to fix computers and you won't believe how often that technical tap works.

You should have a bit better advice then

Believe it or not. That technical tap works more often than not.

Obviously after the computer boots again it's a good idea to check the HDD and maybe replace it with a new one.

I also gave additional advice above.

Summary: Try the tap first. It takes less than a minute and it often works. When the computer still doesn't boot then you can still spend hours with other options.

[Thailand]

Thanks all, at the point where it will go to a tech, any recommendations for Chiang Mai?

Thanks

[ravip]

11 minutes ago, Thailand said:

Thanks all, at the point where it will go to a tech, any recommendations for Chiang Mai?

Thanks

Please let us know what the issue was, once you get it solved. 

Thank you and all the best!

[Salerno]

36 minutes ago, KannikaP said:

No need for insult. No, you cannot download an operating system if your PC is not up and running and connected to the internet.

Maybe if he had an original Windows DVD it could be possible.

 

He wasn't insulting you he was insulting himself.

[Eindhoven]

59 minutes ago, Thailand said:

Thanks all, at the point where it will go to a tech, any recommendations for Chiang Mai?

Thanks

 

 

I recommend that you buy an SSD and either fit it yourself, which is very easy, or take that to the shop and let them fit it.

If you don't, they will almost certainly fit the cheapest branded SSD to your device.

Likely a Kingston A400 or Western Digital Green.

Beeter to order something like a Samsung Evo 870 for yourself: https://shopee.co.th/SAMSUNG-SSD-870-EVO-SATA-250GB-500GB-i.27761913.4579779664

 

or at the very least, a Western Digital Blue: https://shopee.co.th/WD-BLUE-500GB-SATA3-SSD-2.5-3DNAND-(MS6-43)-Internal-Solid-State-Drive-i.25344508.4921942656

 

You don't need to buy via Shopee; just listed to show examples.

 

Your PC will be much faster than before once you fit a good quality SSD.

 

 

[KannikaP]

13 minutes ago, Eindhoven said:

 

 

I recommend that you buy an SSD and either fit it yourself, which is very easy, or take that to the shop and let them fit it.

If you don't, they will almost certainly fit the cheapest branded SSD to your device.

Likely a Kingston A400 or Western Digital Green.

Beeter to order something like a Samsung Evo 870 for yourself: https://shopee.co.th/SAMSUNG-SSD-870-EVO-SATA-250GB-500GB-i.27761913.4579779664

 

or at the very least, a Western Digital Blue: https://shopee.co.th/WD-BLUE-500GB-SATA3-SSD-2.5-3DNAND-(MS6-43)-Internal-Solid-State-Drive-i.25344508.4921942656

 

You don't need to buy via Shopee; just listed to show examples.

 

Your PC will be much faster than before once you fit a good quality SSD.

 

 

But of course, he will still need to install a clean Windows which means either connecting to the internet or using his 'old' DVD or whatever.

[Eindhoven]

22 minutes ago, KannikaP said:

But of course, he will still need to install a clean Windows which means either connecting to the internet or using his 'old' DVD or whatever.

 

Yes. They still have Internet cafes or he can take his chances with letting a shop install Windows 10(I wouldn't).

[Rookiescot]

5 hours ago, Eindhoven said:

 

Yes. They still have Internet cafes or he can take his chances with letting a shop install Windows 10(I wouldn't).

 

Actually windows 10 is not the bogey man it once was. It does take a bit of getting used too but since the (many) updates have been released the operating system has become stable and secure.

A wise man once told me never get the latest release of windows. Always wait until at least two service packs have been released for it. Then jump on board.