No bootable device

[dcritt70]

I have a Toshiba Satellite L655D laptop computer. I've had it for over a year, so the warranty has expired. I have an error message stating "No bootable device, check cable connection. I know this is a hard drive problem. However, I placed a brand new, off the shelf, hard drive into the laptop and received the exact same error message. Does this mean I have a controller problem? And if so, how can I fix this myself without paying $300 or more at a shop?

 

[Tmagic650]

Is the hard drive detected in the bios, if not the motherboard might be bad. I replace a lot of laptop motherboards

 

[DelJo63]

"no bootable device" usually means there is no HD with a bootable partition marked "active". Your new HD needs to be made active and the OS install, which I assume you would have known.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Mark-a-partition-as-active notes:

You must be logged on as an administrator to perform these steps.

Marking a partition as active is an advanced task that should only be performed by advanced users. Marking a partition as active on a basic disk means that the computer will use the loader (an operating system tool) on that partition to start the operating system.