Hard drive not detected in BIOS - reboot & select boot device msg

[dabooj]

Hi,

i have a Advent Atom N270 laptop which has encountered a problem.
When i boot my PC i get the following error: Reboot & Select a proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device & press any key".

I went into BIOS to see the Hard Drive status but i can't see any option where the HD is detected (so i assume it is not being detected).

I thought this issue meant the HD must be the problem. However, i took the HD out of the Advent & tried it on another laptop and it worked fine. Also, i used the working lapyops HD to test the Advent Atom laptop & i get the same error - even though the HD i tried is a perfectly working one.

I have checked to see if the hard drive has power going to it & i can hear it spinning.
I have tried the recovery CDs but they won't install (assuiming thatw ithout a drive, the recovery software can't install).
The hard drives in question are SATA drives

I'm completely confused as to what the issue can be. If it isn't the hard drive then what can it be?
Can anyone please help me with this issue?

regards, Shuja

 

[Mark56]

This is probably an issue with SATA drivers. One vital piece of information is missing from your post, what version of windows are you using and is it already installed on the hard drive?

 

[dabooj]

Hi,

The drive already had Windows XP installed on it & it was working fine but suddenly this boot device msg appeared.
In fact, when i swapped the hard drive from the Advent laptop to a different working laptop, the Windows XP on the drive works fine.
So it can't be the hard drive that's the issue. I can't see how it could be the sata drivers because i can't get into the system to try & intstall sata drivers. I can't start a windows CD or a recovery disk.

Regards, Shuja

 

[Mark56]

Can you get into the Bios and set the CD drive to 1st in the boot order and then try to boot from one of the CD's.

Does the laptop have more than one memory stick, if so try running it on just one of the sticks and then swap to try the other.

 

[dabooj]

Laptop doesn't have a cd drive - it's one of those small netbooks. I don't have an external cd drive i can try. I did try to run the recovery cd from a USB flash drive but that would freeze on the Freedos installation so didn't get anywhere with that.
There is only one stick of memory in the netbook. However, i replaced this with a working stick of memory from my other laptop & i still get the same error.

 

[Mark56]

Taking into account what you have done so far with the hard drive and the memory I suspect there could be a problem with the motherboard.

Run through this guide to make a boot disc to go on the flash drive, you must set the bios to boot from the USB first. If this does not work I think that will confirm your motherboard is faulty. The only other things you can try is reinstalling the motherboard drivers and flashing the bios.

Creating a Windows XP Emergency Boot Loader on a USB Flash Drive

Everything needed is included in this package:

XP_Emergency_Boot_Loader_on_USB.zip 526 KB
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?ymnnz3ytzfe

Contents of "XP_Emergency_Boot_Loader_on_USB.zip"

hpusbfw.exe
readme.txt
Files\boot.ini
Files\ntdetect.com
Files\ntldr

The following instructions will create a fast booting Windows XP
Emergency Boot Loader on a USB Flash Drive (UFD). It will be useful
when you cannot boot into Windows normally. Everything needed is
included in this package.

1. Insert your USB Flash Drive (UFD).

2. Run "hpusbfw.exe" - HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool 2.0.6.0
(The newer version of the HP Tool, 2.1.8.0, will not work)

- Choose your UFD under "Device"
- For "File system" choose "FAT"
- Enter a name under "Volume label" (Maximum 11 characters)
- Leave un-checked "Quick Format" and "Create a DOS startup disk"
- Click "Start"

3. Copy these three files, from the root of the Windows drive (C:\),
to the UFD:

Boot.ini
NTLDR
Ntdetect.com

(Or you can use the files in the sub-folder, "Files")

4. Open the UFD in Explorer then open "boot.ini" with Notepad.
Increase the rdisk() value by one, because when you boot from
a UFD it will be recognized as the first disk (0) making the
Windows disk number two (1). "timeout=-1" means that there is
no countdown. You should use your existing copy of boot.ini
because it is already setup for your computer, just increase
rdisk() by one.

Example boot.ini (Yours will be different)

Before:

[boot loader]
timeout=-1
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Emergency Boot Loader" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptOut
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Safe Mode" /safeboot:minimal /sos

After:

[boot loader]
timeout=-1
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Emergency Boot Loader" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptOut
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Safe Mode" /safeboot:minimal /sos