'No boot device available' -- please help!

Hi Jamescook,

That error does not pertain to your hard drive. But you've got the right idea. You should test your hard drive to see if it's failing. The best way to do this is using your Dell drivers and utilities disc. 

To test your hard drive using your Dell Drivers and Utilities disc:
1. Reboot your system. When you see the Dell logo, hit F12 to enter the boot menu.
2. Insert the Dell Drivers and Utilities disc in your CD/DVD drive.
3. Pick the option to boot from the CD/DVD drive.
4. You will be prompted to hit any key to continue booting from the CD/DVD drive.
5. You will be prompted to hit 1 to run the Dell diagnostics. You may see two such menus.
6. Select Test System.
7. Select Custom Test.
7. Use the arrow keys or mouse to select your hard drive.
9. Click Run Tests.
10. Write down any error messages.

Hello osprey4,

Thank you for taking the time to reply to my problem. The ‘no boot device’ error surfaced again yesterday over the weekend and I took the opportunity to run the test you suggested (took me 5 hours).

It turned out to be negative, which means there’s nothing wrong with my hard drive.

However, I remain skeptical because this problem has been plaguing me for some time. I do not think it will go away just because the hard drive passed a scan.

This problem is causing me a lot of productivity loss and anxiety since there is no pre-warning as to when it is likely to occur.

If there’s anyone from Dell reading this post, please provide your suggestion to solve the problem permanently.

Else, it appears that I have purchased a dud and I want a replacement hard drive without charge!

The 0F00:133C  Msg: DISK – No Suitable Disk Media Is Present, message indicates the optical drive requires a data disc inserted, for the drive to be tested.

I did exactly as opsrey4 suggested. I used the Dell Drivers and Utilities disc to scan for errors in the hard drive. I couldn't find any issue, well, at least that's what the scan results indicated to me.

I did further searches on Google (with my smartphone) and narrowed the problem down to two possibilities:

1) Some piece of hardware came loose, especially the hard drive area or some connection from the hard drive to the motherboard. I need to open the casing and check.

2) Something's wrong the OS i am using (Windows 7). There's a bug or corruption that i am unable to pinpoint. it is a legal version and i update it regularly, so this is strange that the problem is affecting me so much.

I managed to fire up the desktop up yesterday but it froze after five minutes of use. This is not the first time it has happened and i couldn't get it started again last night. in one attempt at re-starting the desktop, the start button has its indicator light turned orange and was bleeping. Any suggestions?

It might be the power supply. If so, I'd suggest a Seasonic TFX as a replacement.

Dell diagnostics  error codes 0f00:0248, 0f00:1348, and 0f00:131B mean the Hard Drive is DEAD

IDE disk confidence test (error code 0f00:1348)

IDE disk read test (error code 0f00:0248)

dira

Answered in your other post here:

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3514/t/19591527.aspx

Bev.

Hi Osprey4, I followed the above steps and on the list of devices it only shows a SD card and a external back up drive that I no longer use. It doesn't show my internal drive. Does that mean it's fried/dead?