Windows 8 Boot device not found....hard disk (3F0)

Bezvoditza

Newbie
Hi all
wonder if anyone can help me, i turned on my hp pavilion laptop yesterday and was welcomed with this message ...

Boot device not found
please install an operating system on your hard disk.
Hard Disk-(3F0)

i've tried a few things i've found on internet,like changing legacy support to enabled from disabled in bios.
That didn't work.
tried system diagnostics fix..no luck
checked the hard drive cable but all solid and still the same.

I don't think the hard drive is shot because if i hit esc at startup go into boot options and select boot from laptop hard drive,
it then restarts and says please insert bootable disc..i've tried that and windows starts up only as far as the green line at the bottom then that disapears and i have a black screen with a pointer and that's it.
i have tried to repair the master boot record buy installing win 8 onto a usb and then booting from that, the hp logo appears and the spinning circle underneath appears then the screen goes black and thats it, i have left it for half an hour but nothing seems to be happening.
any ideas would be great.
cheers.
 
Sounds like your disk has died. It's happened to me too many times. But you've got a backup, right?

If you don't, this may save you. It is going to sound like I'm having you on, but here's what you can do:

1) Get some external storage ready (USB or eSATA or something big enough to hold your data)

2) Remove your borked laptop drive.

3) Put it in the freezer for a couple of hours.

4) Put it back in your laptop.

5) Boot up straight away.

6) Backup to your external HDD as fast as you can.

7) Replace the bad disk, rebuild your PC and run regular backups in the future!

Good luck.
 
if you wait 10 minutes at the black screen, the desktop will eventually load. it's a bug with 8. Once in desktop, open command prompt as administrator and run command sfc /scannow

For windows 2000 / xp / 7 you need secure boot disabled in bios and legacy support enabled. for 8 / 8.1 / 10 you need secure boot enabled and legacy support disabled as these operating systems support the newer UEFI boot options. notwithstanding that, it all depends whether lagacy support was opted for in the wmi setup files on installation media whether windows natively supports BIOS or UEFI booting.
 
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