Reboot and Select Proper Boot Device

[Dell Christopher]

HP Pavilion p6210y desktop
Windows 7 Home Premium

I tried booting up my computer today and got the following message: "Reboot
and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device
and press a key".

I tried every conceivable F key but it still just goes to this message. No
matter what I do, I am not able to get to System Recovery or any of the
Advanced Startup options. I also tried entering Setup and loading System
Defaults, but still nothing.

On the first screen in Setup, where it lists 1st Device, 2nd Device, 3rd
Device, etc, each of those lines are blank instead of listing a hard drive
or CD/DVD drive. When I scroll down to each device and press Enter, the
next screen is completely blank. That does not seem normal to me as I've
been in System Setup before with other computers and I'm used to seeing
device info on that first screen.

Lastly, I opened up the tower and checked both cables going to the hard
drive and they are secure. All other cables also appear to be secure in
their slots.

Any ideas what might be going on here? All input is appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Paul]

HP Pavilion p6210y desktop
Windows 7 Home Premium

I tried booting up my computer today and got the following message:
"Reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected
boot device and press a key".

I tried every conceivable F key but it still just goes to this message.
No matter what I do, I am not able to get to System Recovery or any of
the Advanced Startup options. I also tried entering Setup and loading
System Defaults, but still nothing.

On the first screen in Setup, where it lists 1st Device, 2nd Device, 3rd
Device, etc, each of those lines are blank instead of listing a hard
drive or CD/DVD drive. When I scroll down to each device and press
Enter, the next screen is completely blank. That does not seem normal
to me as I've been in System Setup before with other computers and I'm
used to seeing device info on that first screen.

Lastly, I opened up the tower and checked both cables going to the hard
drive and they are secure. All other cables also appear to be secure in
their slots.

Any ideas what might be going on here? All input is appreciated. Thanks!

Think carefully about added hardware.

What's the last hardware you added to the box ?

Carefully remove hardware from the configuration, until something
starts to work.

Losing all the drives, is not particularly logical. The system
would not be able to boot into Setup, if the BIOS chip could not
be accessed. The chipset has to be (mostly) working to get that
far. While the power feed to the SATA interfaces could be dead,
causing the drives to disappear, I don't believe that for a
moment. Maybe the SATA subsystem needs a clock from the clock
generator, and perhaps that isn't running or something. Clock
generator pins are separately programmable, and can be turned
off by BIOS code.

Procsssor --- Northbridge --- Southbridge ---(LPC)--- BIOS chip <--- this works
|
Disks <--- and this doesn't work

The reason I ask about added hardware, is in case something
that was added to the computer, is "distracting" the BIOS
and giving your erroneous results. And that's why I suggest
carefully disconnecting stuff. If you have three hard drives,
disconnect two of them, and test with the remaining drive.
And so on.

If the NVRAM was corrupted, perhaps that could set the
"disable" bit for a SATA port, but you've already been
into that portion of the BIOS and could have enabled
them again. If the BIOS has "Load Setup Defaults", you
could use that. Then "Save and Exit". But this assumes
you also aren't using any custom settings. If you have
custom settings, write those down first before nuking
the BIOS settings with "Load Setup Defaults".

Leaving a floppy diskette in a floppy drive, can
prevent a system from booting. But I don't think
that makes SATA drives disappear from
the BIOS Setup screen.

Paul

 

[Vic Titious]

Think carefully about added hardware.

What's the last hardware you added to the box ?

Carefully remove hardware from the configuration, until something
starts to work.

Losing all the drives, is not particularly logical. The system
would not be able to boot into Setup, if the BIOS chip could not
be accessed. The chipset has to be (mostly) working to get that
far. While the power feed to the SATA interfaces could be dead,
causing the drives to disappear, I don't believe that for a
moment. Maybe the SATA subsystem needs a clock from the clock
generator, and perhaps that isn't running or something. Clock
generator pins are separately programmable, and can be turned
off by BIOS code.

Procsssor --- Northbridge --- Southbridge ---(LPC)--- BIOS chip <---
this works
|
Disks <--- and this doesn't work

The reason I ask about added hardware, is in case something
that was added to the computer, is "distracting" the BIOS
and giving your erroneous results. And that's why I suggest
carefully disconnecting stuff. If you have three hard drives,
disconnect two of them, and test with the remaining drive.
And so on.

If the NVRAM was corrupted, perhaps that could set the
"disable" bit for a SATA port, but you've already been
into that portion of the BIOS and could have enabled
them again. If the BIOS has "Load Setup Defaults", you
could use that. Then "Save and Exit". But this assumes
you also aren't using any custom settings. If you have
custom settings, write those down first before nuking
the BIOS settings with "Load Setup Defaults".

Leaving a floppy diskette in a floppy drive, can
prevent a system from booting. But I don't think
that makes SATA drives disappear from
the BIOS Setup screen.

Paul

Continuing in the direction you're heading, Paul, I thought maybe the BIOS
was reset or the battery flakey or some such reason to think it was reset.
I have had drives that were initialized and OS-installed with either the
RAID settings on (even if I didn't raid the OS drive & simply went ahead and
installed Win7) or in that same selective BIOS category, the AHCI on and the
system needs to see that same setting in order to boot, neither of which are
usually default after a reset of BIOS. This kind of thing can have you
talking to yourself after hour three.
Also, if you have a BIOS setting for HPET 64 or 32 (one of my Gigabyte's has
these separate and I don't know if this is indigenous to other boards) and
you run the opposite OS without its proper HPET setting, then that setting
needs tending as well.
Just fishing here on some longshots, but I'd like to know the resolution to
this. But I'm with you, it's in the BIOS somewhere.