Mend > Notebooks/Laptop PCs

no bootable devices?

i have a dell inspiron 6400 i have installed a new 320gb hard drivewhen i tried to boot up my laptop i get the message no boot sector on internal hard drive and further down the screen no bootable devices--strike f1 blah blah

steve
January 2010

Dell Dell Inspiron 6400 Computers, Notebooks/Laptop PCs Dell Inspiron Hard

The operating system resides on the hard disk - it is usually put on at the factory - if you take out the original hard disk you then need to rebuild the OS on any new disk.

To do this you need the OS media on a CD and a CD drive to read it - and the Product Authorisation Key - a number on the media package and sometimes on a sticker on the machine itself.

You need to set the machine's BIOS boot-priority to CD rather than Hard Disk.

After building the OS on the new disk you then need to change the boot priority again - back to hard disk.

Your machine's BIOS is trying to find a Boot Sector (with software) on the hard disk - it's not there until you put it on. You have no bootable device - as per the screen message.

Peccavi
January 2010