Urgent help needed. "Reboot and Select Proper Boot Device" message

I shut down my computer for a week, while on Vacation, and now when I boot up, I get the following message:
Reboot and select proper Boot device
Or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key

I have an Asus Motherboard with Intel i7 Core processor and the system is running Windows 7 o/s. I can reboot the system and get into the BIOS and see that the boot priority is set-up correctly. Also, I can see in the BIOS that the boot drive is present. When I physically disconnect the boot drive, it is missing in the BIOS. That tells me that the BIOS can properly see the Boot drive.

I don’t have a floppy drive and there is no disc in the CD/DVD ROM when I reboot.

I have tried to reboot with the Windows installation disc, but when I do so, it tries to re-install the o/s and I don’t want that.

Have you tried clearing the CMOS battery and then resetting your BIOS information and saving it afresh?

I forget just which Windows boot error message appears if the drive filesystem is corrupt (so not certain this will apply but is worth a shot).. but you might try Windows 7 Recovery Options to see if you can run chkdsk /r from command prompt to verify/repair filesystem corruption

Thank you for the responses.

Route44, how do I clear the CMOS battery and reset the BIOS information? I want to try this proposal.

LookinAround, I cannot run chkdsk /r, as there is no command prompt. After reboot, I just get the following message:
Reboot and select proper Boot device
Or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key

The only option is to hit any key, and after I do that, I still get the same message. I also have the option to reboot and get into the BIOS setting.

I think you didn't notice there was a link in my prior post (links should appear as blue text) so click here

See if you can boot from your Windows 7 install CD to try and get to the recovery console command prompt (see Method 2 in the link)