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No Boot Device Available - Onoard SATA Hard Drive Not Present
Over a month ago I started getting No boot device available strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utility. When I select F2 the Boot Sequence lists the onboard SATA Hard Drive as not present. In fact, the only drive that is listed as present is the CD/DVD drive. It starts up with the VISTA disk in the CD/DVD drive and appears to work just fine after the initial startup issues.
Computer: Dimension E520 (3.5 years old)
O/S: Windows Vista Home Premium SP2
Here is what I tried (not exactly in this order):
1. Scanned for viruses - none found
2. Scanned hard drive for errors - none found
3. Ran memory diagnostic - nothing found
4. Ran startup repair tool - nothing found
5. Re-installed Windows Vista (formatted drive, installed all ~200 updates)
6. Updated BIOS (version 2.4)
7. Ran bootrec /fixmbr & /rebuildbcd (including backup and deleting old bcd first)
8. Disconnected & reconnected hard drive - cables do not appear to be loose
As I said, once the computer starts it appears to work just fine. This same error happened to me 2-3 times in the past but never with any consistency until last month.
I am completely out of idea. Can anyone suggest anything else to check? I'd really appreciate any ideas. Thank you!
fireberd
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August 30th, 2010 04:00
Two suggestions.
1. You should have more than 1 SATA port on the Motherboard. Connect the hard drive to a different SATA port and see if that makes a difference.
2. Install the latest Intel motherboard chipset drivers from Dell HERE is the latest version (or if you have this version, reinstall it). Check the "Additional Information" section in the Download listing as there are special instructions on installing this. The chipset drivers define the hardware devices on the motherboard and if the SATA ports were corrupted this should fix it, assuming there is no hardware problem on the motherboard.
CathyJo
4 Posts
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August 30th, 2010 19:00
Thank you for the suggestions Fireberd! I am trying them now.
I'm sure this is a silly question but I do not understand the additional information comment "In order to extract only the needed INFs for a given platform, please execute the following command (it is very important to run the above command on a platform on which the extracted INF files will be later installed)". When am I suppose to run this command and from where? I downloaded the driver and the file is called "R132539" and it is an application file. It seems like I would just double-click this file to install the driver but I am nervous bcause it said it was "very important" to run this command first.
Thanks again!
CathyJo
4 Posts
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August 30th, 2010 21:00
Sorry that was a silly question. I went ahead a double-clicked the downloaded file to find out it was just installing a zip file and then I saw the setup.exe file. However, as it turns out that version was for a different OS.
I re-ran the installation for the driver for Vista (driver v.8.1.1.1010, A01). I had already installed this driver first thing after re-installed Vista.
I also tried the different SATA ports. SATA4 & SATA5 did not appear to work at all (plugged CD/DVD drive into those & was not recognized). The CD/DVD works on SATA0 and SATA1. The hard drive did not work on SATA0 or SATA1.
I am not sure what that means?
Any other suggestions?
Thanks for any and all help!
DCX4EVER
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August 31st, 2010 10:00
Sata ports 4 and 5 didn't work probably because they were not enabled in the bios. As for you HD issue if the cd works in ports 0 and 1 then its not the mb but most likely the hd drive has failed. You can try Dell's hardware diagnostic program but most likely your had drive has failed and needs to be replaced. Good Luck.
Jeff Hoffman
881 Posts
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September 6th, 2010 20:00
Chances are that you have already tried this BUT: After 3.5 years I would replace the CMOS battery - $3-$4 at the drugstore. I would also double and triple check the BIOS settings. If the battery was weak and/or failed that can cause some strange problems to appear.
Jeff :emotion-22:
CathyJo
4 Posts
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September 6th, 2010 20:00
Thanks for the feedback DCXEVER. I ran the dell diagnostic (forgot to include that in the list of things I already tried) and nothing was found. The hard drive appears to be completely fine (no bad sectors or issues found during diagnostic) and functions just fine once my computer starts up. Perhaps my hard drive is still bad but there does not seem to be anything wrong except that I cannot boot from the hard drive. Right now, I am just going to continue to boot from the CD/DVD drive.
rabw
1 Message
1
April 26th, 2016 20:00
1.changing battery not resolved the problem.
2.boot -choose one item and press F7 then you will see the missing drive !
select -aply -exit