No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key

[Hurr Durr Derp]

Hello Escapists

Just a few hours ago, I turned off my laptop. At that point it was working perfectly, as it has been for almost a year now. About thirty minutes ago, I turned it back on.

The first thing I noticed was a somewhat unusual noise. It was a very faint high-pitched noise, like a soft BEEEEP-beep-BEEEEP-beep-BEEEEP-beep-BEEEEP-beep. a second later, one line of text appeared on screen: "No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key". This is of course nonsense. My HD was working just fine a few hours ago and the laptop hadn't even been touched since. Not willing to just take the machine's word for it, I rebooted and entered the BIOS screen. The HD diagnostic gave its result all too quickly: "Hard Disk Not Exist". Fuck you too, harddrive-stealing elves!

I can't imagine what caused the harddrive to apparently fail so hard it ceased to exist, but then again I'm a complete noob when it comes to hardware so what do I know anyway? I'm reasonably sure it's not an overheating problem because the machine wasn't hot at all, and I also doubt it's caused by some kind of physical damage because between the time it was working perfectly and the time it didn't work at all anymore it wasn't even moved.

I normally use my laptop for everything. School, work, keeping in touch with friends and family, browsing the internet, playing games, you name it. I depend on it every day, not just for entertainment but for more serious things as well. So I guess you can understand how this situation pisses me off and scares me. I'm currently typing this using my old PoS desktop which is a temporary measure at best because not only is it not portable, it also doesn't have the latest versions of the stuff I need for school and work. Getting access to these files would be priority #1, but of course fixing the damn thing is important too.

I'm going to take it to the store tomorrow to see what they can do about it, but if I do that I'm going to be without my trusty laptop for at least a week while those jackasses take their sweet time. I was wondering if any of you knew what could have caused this problem, if I could do anything to fix it myself, and how to avoid this problem in the future.

Some additional info:
- The laptop is a Compaq Presario CQ70
- I'm using Windows Vista Home Premium
- I don't have a Windows recovery CD since the recovery stuff was on a separate partition of the harddrive that doesn't work anymore.

 

[Baby Tea]

The drive could have just, you know, died. Magnetic drives (Since I'm sure its not solid state) experience wear over time, and it could have finally given up the ghost. How old is the laptop?

 

[DuplicateValue]

The drive could have just, you know, died. Magnetic drives (Since I'm sure its not solid state) experience wear over time, and it could have finally given up the ghost. How old is the laptop?

A year.

It's in the OP.

 

[Hurr Durr Derp]

The drive could have just, you know, died. Magnetic drives (Since I'm sure its not solid state) experience wear over time, and it could have finally given up the ghost. How old is the laptop?

It's about 10 months old.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

Hmm, if the drive didn't actually fail that would be odd. I had a similar error crop up on an Acer desktop, every time you turn it on it will go past the bios and then sit at the next screen for a while before deciding there is no boot device and asking you to insert one and press enter. Since I only had the thing because I was told it was "boot looping", the first thing I did was to go into the BIOS and I discovered that the hard drive 'didn't exist', again just like your situation.

Turns out if you pressed Ctrl+Alt+Del, it would start up normally when it came back up. I don't suppose you tried doing that? As for the Bios, the next time I went into it (to show the guy who gave it to me to look at what was up), the hard drive was suddenly being listed again like nothing had happened. We never did find a solution to make the problems go away, but since all you needed to do was the three finger salute to get it to boot up cold, we decided it wasn't worth the effort and called it a day.

 

[vic_elor]

It will not fix the problem in any way shape or form but...
If the top priority is to get access to your most up to date files without waiting a week you can remove the hard drive and place it temporarily in a portable enclosure and then plug it into the your desktop unit. Your desktop might (underline might) be able to see the drive.

It is not a guarantee, not a fix, and does require some technical ability (open the case without falling breaking tears of fear)... although opening the case usually voids any warranty.

 

[Hurr Durr Derp]

Hmm, if the drive didn't actually fail that would be odd. I had a similar error crop up on an Acer desktop, every time you turn it on it will go past the bios and then sit at the next screen for a while before deciding there is no boot device and asking you to insert one and press enter.

Turns out if you pressed Ctrl+Alt+Del, it would start up normally when it came back up. I don't suppose you tried doing that?

Tried that, didn't work. Ctrl-Alt-Delete just reboots the thing and leads to the exact same error.

 

[grimsprice]

I can't imagine what caused the harddrive to apparently fail so hard it ceased to exist

That reminds me of the GSS Titanic.

The galactic starship titanic was built in the early years of improbability research. So to be cutting edge, and to make it work forever, a massive improbability field was installed to prevent anything bad from ever happening. However, because of the quasi-reciprocal nature of improbability fields, it cause every possibly conceivable thing to go wrong (and even some inconceivable things). The crew attempted to give off an sos distress signal before the distress signal machine failed. They were unable to. Then the entire ship underwent a complete existence failure. It has not been seen since.


I know that has nothing to do with your HD but its one of my favorite stories.


OT: You have received all the most likely theories already so imma just say you might have to get the HD replaced at this store of which you speak.

 

[Hurr Durr Derp]

It will not fix the problem in any way shape or form but...
If the top priority is to get access to your most up to date files without waiting a week you can remove the hard drive and place it temporarily in a portable enclosure and then plug it into the your desktop unit. Your desktop might (underline might) be able to see the drive.

It is not a guarantee, not a fix, and does require some technical ability (open the case without falling breaking tears of fear)... although opening the case usually voids any warranty.

Hm, I guess I could try that. I'm not all that afraid of breaking anything because it seems to be broken anyway...

If I don't get any better advice I guess I'll do that and see if I can at least salvage the files. Maybe if I hook the HD up to the desktop it'll be able to see what's wrong with it?

 

[dragontiers]

You didn't do something silly like set it on a big magnet or something like that did you? Other than that, I'd have to go with Baby Tea and say maybe it was just a cheap drive and died out on you.

 

[Woodsey]

Hard Drive's have a tendency to just pack up and leave. Mine did a couple of years back - you may get lucky and it'll boot again, but it won't for long.

Time to get a new laptop.

 

[Hurr Durr Derp]

You didn't do something silly like set it on a big magnet or something like that did you? Other than that, I'd have to go with Baby Tea and say maybe it was just a cheap drive and died out on you.

I keep all my big magnets (also the small ones) and computer-related stuff well away from eachother at all times. They're not even in the same room.

So unless it was a magic magnet (or one fired from a grassy knoll), that's not the cause.