Dell Inspiron says "no bootable devices" with brand new hard drive

[janie123]

I have had many issues with this comupter, but my Dell Inspirton 1545 had started to read "no bootable devices" and wouldn't start at all. Now, after buying and installing a brand new harddrive, it reads it again, but only SOMETIMES!

When it gives me options of rebooting or running a diagnostics test, if I switch some stuff around or restart it, or even just leave it alone for a little while, I can start it and it works fine. Except after a short while of using it, it will malfunction and go to "no bootable devices" page again. Tech support says that the hard drive may not be connected properly, but I don't know what to do!

 

[Zen]

Probably a silly question, but is anything on the hard drive, like an O.S.? Has the "new" hard drive already been formatted? I'm only asking for sometimes some of my clients will go behind my back and install things like hard drives on their own and try to load an O.S. on them, failing to go through the formatting process, and they in the end either through frustration or embarrassment wind up calling me to drive to their house and fix their problem, like installing the O.S. properly.

Also checking your connections might not hurt, just make sure everything is fitting nice and snug and connected the right way.

(This was just me kind of thinking out loud for you.)