HP "Boot Device Not Found"

Hi, I'm having a problem with my HP laptop. It fails to boot, with the error message:

"Boot Device Not Found

Please install an operating system on your hard disk.

Hard Disk (3F0)"

With the help of Google, HP website etc, I restored the BIOS. I also ran disk diagnostics. It passed both the fast SMART test and the extensive (about 3.5 hours) test with no issues found.

After the BIOS reset/restore it booted normally, but crashed after about 10 minutes, and went back to insisting there's no operating system.

I'm not confident opening it up and reseating the disk, which I suspect might be what's needed here, but is there anything else I should try?

@TLM,

What OS is suppose to be on your laptop? Windows 11? Did you back-up your data? You might have to re-install your OS, if you haven't already tried that. I am based in Basingstoke, Hampshire and would be more than happy to look at your laptop if you would like. DM or email me ([email protected]) with more details if you're interested.

HTH,

Windows 10. Not backed up, but unlikely there was much critical on it, as it has scarcely been used.

All the more frustrating that it's playing silly beggars on one of the few occasions I tried to use it.

It might have been like it for some time, but I didn't discover it because I had no occasion to use it. Today I was trying to fault find an unrelated (probably) problem with my printer (never rains but it pours!) and decided to check whether it would print over a wired connection with the laptop, thus pointing to a network problem.

That's when I discovered the laptop wouldn't boot!

Your offer of help is very kind, but I'm miles from you, down in Bristol, so can't nip round with it! It's six or seven years old, and I've never really taken to it, right from new, so it might be time to cut my losses and get one I actually like.

@TLM,

I would usually recommend upgrading after over 5 years. This might be the wisest advice I could give anyone!

HTH,

Thanks, I'm not a heavy user, and don't rely on it for business, so it's never been critical to have the latest thing. I now use an Android tablet much more, and am questioning whether a PC is even necessary in today's world. I didn't really use the one I've got, and now it's broken, so I can't say I had my money's worth. It's been a pain since Day 1, as I mentioned. If I do bite the bullet and replace it, it won't be HP again.

Just a thought: https://www.uwe.ac.uk/about/values-vision-strategy/s...

Might be useful for future reference, but not the easiest for me to get to on public transport - especially lugging a computer - and not open now until term time at the end of September anyway.

I could afford a paid repair closer to home, but just because I could, doesn't mean it's worth it for an old computer. Might be worth paying somebody to get the data off, just in case there was anything I forgot I wanted. Since I'm fairly sure the disk itself is intact, they might be able to mount it somewhere else and pull the data.

How much did you buy it for?

Given this machine is 6 or 7 years old and you’ve basically said you’d rather not use it / haven’t ever really taken to using it - I just don’t think it’s worth spending any money on getting this repaired.

If it was me I’d open it up and take a look to see if it’s an easy fix. Otherwise it would be straight on eBay 👍🤩

If the disk needed reseating then I doubt it would pass the tests, there is very little space in a laptop and dives are normally in some sort of cradle, or they have been with the laptops I have seen.

Windows itself could have a problem, would you know how to reinstall windows?


I would offer my help, but distance is a problem.

I could doubtless learn how to reinstall it from online resources, but I don't have a copy to reinstall.

I can hear it clicking to try to read the disk as it attempts to boot. It tries three or four times then defaults to the error condition. The weird thing was that restoring the BIOS fixed it, allowing it to boot, and demonstrating that it definitely had an OS (and data, because all my stuff on my home screen loaded up alright). But the fix didn't stick, because ten minutes later it crashed, and started with the same nonsense.

I don't remember, but reckon it was about £500 - might have been £700 at a push, as I think I ended up going higher than I meant.

Although I'm not confident opening it up, it's true there's no harm to be done that's worse than "doesn't work at all", which is the current position, so might be worth a try as a last resort.

Edit: Hmmm. I bought it in 2019 for £629.

Edited by TLM (Fri 31-Jul-26 08:23:29)

To me it reads like an intermittent hardware fault. That could be the drive or system board or incompatible/out of date firmware. However before you open it up to physically check drive, re-seat any memory modules etc, do as others have said and completely reinstall Windows from scratch. I’d also update the BIOS to the latest version.

The HP support website (hopefully) should give you reinstallation media files for your particular machine.

Otherwise It’s fairly trivial to download and make a bootable Windows 10 installation USB stick.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Otherwise It’s fairly trivial to download and make a bootable Windows 10 installation USB stick.

"Boot device not found" from the BIOS/UEFI screens isn't going to be fixed by reinstalling an operating system. This is possible SSD failure, and where if it does boot, checking for HP's own update tool and running it could install new SSD firmware.

If its been dropped onto a hard floor it may have worked loose a connector, its probably not an M.2 unit, as its Win10 and ~5 years old, its likely SATA, maybe in a 2.5" chassis, and something has moved by 2 mm.

A repair shop, or cafe is a good idea.

A clicking disk like this normally indicates a hardware problem with the disk itself. Most likely given the age of the device and the nature of the fault - it doesn't sound like a software problem. I don't think there's any point in reinstalling the OS on that disk.

Replacement disks are fairly cheap (£40 or so, depending upon size) and likely to be easy to replace. Do you know what particular model it is? - you can normally find online instructions on how to replace a disk.

Definitely never been dropped. Scarcely even been moved since new. Set up and stayed there.

If it's clicking it sounds like a conventional hard drive rather than an SSD (although this would be a good opportunity to upgrade to an SSD). Six to seven years is the high end of the expected lifetime of a mechanical hard disk so it's not a big surprise if it's now failing. The disks in HP laptops are normally fairly accessible so replacement should be easy; but it does depend upon the model number.

An SSD should breathe new life into this machine - about £50 for a 512GB SATA SSD. Drop in replacement for a mechanical disk.

Yup, it is conventional, not SSD.

In which case, it’s quite probably a limping / dying mechanical drive. Strange that it reported a clean bill of health…

I’d probably drop a cheapish SSD in there. Would be quite transformative

In reply to a post by TLM:

Definitely never been dropped. Scarcely even been moved since new. Set up and stayed there.

Then its possibly either a firmware in the drive fault where the computer can't "see" the drive electronically, or the drive itself is just failing.

In reply to a post by TLM:

I could doubtless learn how to reinstall it from online resources, but I don't have a copy to reinstall.

I can hear it clicking to try to read the disk as it attempts to boot. It tries three or four times then defaults to the error condition. The weird thing was that restoring the BIOS fixed it, allowing it to boot, and demonstrating that it definitely had an OS (and data, because all my stuff on my home screen loaded up alright). But the fix didn't stick, because ten minutes later it crashed, and started with the same nonsense.

That do sound like a hard drive fault if it is clicking, but not sure how it passed an extensive test. Smart test only test the electronics as far as I know.

If it is the drive, then the data is no doubt gone getting it back could be costly.

If you have a second computer you can download Windows 10 from MS website and stick it onto a usb stick.

Your best bet is to see if you can find someone close that doesn't charge a fortune, sadly it is becoming more difficult.
The other thing is to have a look at some YouTube channels and learn how fix it.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

"Boot device not found" from the BIOS/UEFI screens isn't going to be fixed by reinstalling an operating system. This is possible SSD failure, and where if it does boot, checking for HP's own update tool and running it could install new SSD firmware.

If its been dropped onto a hard floor it may have worked loose a connector, its probably not an M.2 unit, as its Win10 and ~5 years old, its likely SATA, maybe in a 2.5" chassis, and something has moved by 2 mm.

A repair shop, or cafe is a good idea.

I sorted out a HP a few years ago that said boot device not found, turned out to be Windows. It seems the computer know the drive is there because it does the tests and pass. Very strange because if the drive is faulty, as it seems to be by clicking, then it should not pass the extensive test.

I agree with your advice about a repair cafe.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I sorted out a HP a few years ago that said boot device not found, turned out to be Windows. It seems the computer know the drive is there because it does the tests and pass. Very strange because if the drive is faulty, as it seems to be by clicking, then it should not pass the extensive test.

The "boot device not found" message is created by the BIOS/UEFI and probably issued when it can't recognise a suitable boot image. Sometimes a battery going flat may have changed SETUP settings so that what is on the disk is no longer recognised.

In large company deployments (think 500+ PCs or laptops) we tend to rely on the BIOS as it comes from the manufacturer factory so that if battery goes flat we don't lose settings. Generally works ok.

HP's consumer PC are often quite different to their enterprise.

I agree with your advice about a repair cafe.

They are brilliant where you have one.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

The "boot device not found" message is created by the BIOS/UEFI and probably issued when it can't recognise a suitable boot image. Sometimes a battery going flat may have changed SETUP settings so that what is on the disk is no longer recognised.

So as I said, could be a Windows issue, but if the drive is clicking then that normally means the drive has a fault. If so then how did it pass a test?

HP, say nothing more

In large company deployments (think 500+ PCs or laptops) we tend to rely on the BIOS as it comes from the manufacturer factory so that if battery goes flat we don't lose settings. Generally works ok.

HP's consumer PC are often quite different to their enterprise.

Which one is worse?
over the years I have worked a fair bit on HP machines, hate them, almost as bad as Packard Bell

They are brilliant where you have one.

I sometimes see something about repair cafes here, but I have no idea where they are.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I sometimes see something about repair cafes here, but I have no idea where they are.

Quick Google brought this up:

https://repaircafeherefordcity.org.uk/

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

So as I said, could be a Windows issue, but if the drive is clicking then that normally means the drive has a fault. If so then how did it pass a test?

the BIOS tests are usually just checking the SMART flags. A clicking drive may be retrying a damaged sector that might be mappable around using something like SpinRite.

Which one is worse?
over the years I have worked a fair bit on HP machines, hate them, almost as bad as Packard Bell

Packard Bell was a consumer brand of NEC, sold in Dixons then PCWorld.
HP consumer product is not a patch on their enterprise range. Generally made of inferior components and some really poor design choices. I would usually suggest Dell if looking at entry level home user price, or even look at Microsoft Surface Laptops second hand at CEX, as they get all the updates from, er, Microsoft directly.

It's clicking in the way it always has when it starts to boot. Maybe it's always been dodgy, who knows?

But that click is familiar to me as an indication it's about to boot. It's never previously been a sign of trouble,

The difference now is it clicks, but then doesn't boot - i.e. I can hear it trying, but then something goes wrong.

It tries a couple more times (more clicks!) but then displays the error message.

Three is the important bit here. That’s how many times the controller tries to access a sector before giving up and reporting an error.

Yep, it's definitely not just a random weird noise. I can tell it's trying.

What model of HP laptop is it? Shouldn’t be too hard to get to the drive in any event.

I’d opt to take the drive out of the machine and then reconnect it (be worth re-seating both ends of any drive cabling as appropriate) before I ordered any SSD replacement.

At least then you’ll check off if it was just a dodgy connection and also confirm drive type/size/interface type should you decide you want to replace it, if indeed faulty.

A lightly used machine shouldn’t have a drive worn out in this sort of age machine. A machine used for hours each and every day with lots of power on/off cycles is a different matter though….saying that I’d put an SSD in there anyway.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

the BIOS tests are usually just checking the SMART flags. A clicking drive may be retrying a damaged sector that might be mappable around using something like SpinRite.

Spinrite, WOW, that takes me back. Gibson Research, used to use their leak test software.

Packard Bell was a consumer brand of NEC, sold in Dixons then PCWorld.

Yes I know it was a NEC brand. I have been sorting out some things and I found some Packard Bell branded blank DVDs, LOL.
I remember their machines, sadly.

HP consumer product is not a patch on their enterprise range. Generally made of inferior components and some really poor design choices. I would usually suggest Dell if looking at entry level home user price, or even look at Microsoft Surface Laptops second hand at CEX, as they get all the updates from, er, Microsoft directly.

My next door neighbour had a HP machine, years ago, I think she still has it, anyway, It was when her hubby lived there, that I had to open it up to install memory, apart from a load of dust and rubbish from smoking being in the vents, it was a pain in the neck to work on. It was a tower, not a laptop.