Boot issue. Please advise. Ta

raptormonkey · 4 Dec 2009 at 12:11

My mate keeps getting this message when he starts his PC:

“Reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media”

He has been in the bios and the hard drive is already selected as the first boot device!!
This problem has been happening on and off for a couple weeks. Sometimes windows xp loads fine other times he gets the above message and it takes a few switching on and off before the pc starts. Now he cant get it to start this time!! Help!

wozencl · 4 Dec 2009 at 12:14

Check the cables going into the HDD - sounds like one might be loose. He should be able to see the HDD being detected at boot.

bledd · 4 Dec 2009 at 13:10

Also, he could have a usb key plugged in or external hard drive

maybe the hard drive boot menu has another drive set to first boot.

Might be hard drive on the way out, backup then do the following..

boot into recovery console (google how to do this)
then run

chkdsk /R
fixboot
fixmbr

raptormonkey · 4 Dec 2009 at 15:00

Done all the above bledd. Still the same. Is it worth formatting and re-installing XP?

bledd · 4 Dec 2009 at 15:01

check ide/sata cable first

redknight333 · 13 Dec 2009 at 14:22

I'm also having this problem insert proper boot device sometimes comes on in the morning from a shutdown at night, more than often now it comes up with that message. When i press a key on the keyboard it tries again, trying to find a boot device. Usually works from then on once booted into windows xp all works find. so i wanna find out the fix for the problem.