# [SOLVED] "No bootable devices"



## Spidi (Aug 6, 2008)

Hi

I'll try to keep this brief... My 5 months old Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop suddenly rebooted, whilst executing a normal program. The error message it gave was: no bootable devices. I knew it was quite serious. My HD is detected in the bios and Fujitsu Siemens (brand of HD) diagnostic tool found no errors. Vista repair is impossible because my windows partition is gone, it has become unallocated space. So after trying to fix it for 3 days, I tried Winternals Disk Commander from Hirens Boot Cd (great cd btw), to recover at least some files.

This program worked wonderful: it showed a list of all the files that were on my computer, I selected the ones I wanted to restore. Then I searched my external HD in the list of devices, because I wanted to copy the files to that drive. But it wasn't there...
I thought it would be there, because in the first scan which searched for drives to be recovered, it did find it!

So now I can a) connect another hd (possible with laptop?:l) b) use an other external hd (mine is usb and ntfs, maybe fat32 one works?) c) ? I don't have a floppy drive, but that would take too much time anyway.

I feel quite helpless now because I've been on this for 3 days, then when finally I get some hope I can't do anything anymore.

So far for the briefness

I hope someone can help
Thanks in advance,
Michiel from Belgium.


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## TriggerFinger (Jan 30, 2008)

*Re: "No bootable devices"*

Hi Michiel,

So you mean you just want to recover some files from your hard drive. But using a program in Hiren boot CD, the application cannot see the USB connected external hard drive.

You can do one of two things, One is to remove your hard drive and use it via a USB external enclosure to connect to another PC or laptop. And two is to use Knoppix live CD. I tried it several times and it worked fine for me. I am not familiar with Hiren Boot CD :grin:.


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## Spidi (Aug 6, 2008)

*Re: "No bootable devices"*

I've tried Ubuntu and Pclinuxos, I suppose Knoppix won't help either?
Taking the hard drive out is a great idea, I know how to do it and I have another computer available. But how exactly can I connect it to the other computer?

Thanks for the fast reply,

Spidi.


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## TriggerFinger (Jan 30, 2008)

*Re: "No bootable devices"*



Spidi said:


> I've tried Ubuntu and Pclinuxos, I suppose Knoppix won't help either? -- I had problems with Ubuntu and PCLinuxOS in writing to external HDD with NTFS, that is why I said Knoppix. I hope you try the advise first before you say they don't work. :grin:
> 
> Taking the hard drive out is a great idea, I know how to do it and I have another computer available. But how exactly can I connect it to the other computer? -- Pls read my previous reply again. If you have read my reply previously, I said you can do this by using a USB connected external enclosure.
> 
> ...


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## Spidi (Aug 6, 2008)

*Re: "No bootable devices"*

Knoppix will not help because is it just unallocated space.. ok maybe it can write to external ntfs disks, but if I can't access my old files, that's worthless.

And I have read your comment, I just didn't understand it because I didn't know what a disk enclosure was. I've looked around for it now, and now I know, but I don't have one.

A friend of mine has an external fat32 hard drive, would this work? Or is any external usb drive useless with disk commander?

Sorry for my lazyness to look disk enclosure up (actually I'm always the first one to say "use google") but I didn't have much time atm, so..sorry!

Spidi.


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## red_phoenix (Jul 30, 2008)

*Re: "No bootable devices"*



Spidi said:


> Hi
> 
> I'll try to keep this brief... My 5 months old Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop suddenly rebooted, whilst executing a normal program. The error message it gave was: no bootable devices. I knew it was quite serious. My HD is detected in the bios and Fujitsu Siemens (brand of HD) diagnostic tool found no errors. Vista repair is impossible because my windows partition is gone, it has become unallocated space. So after trying to fix it for 3 days, I tried Winternals Disk Commander from Hirens Boot Cd (great cd btw), to recover at least some files.
> 
> ...


hi there,
from my opinion, ur 1st or 2nd sector of hardisk which contain information about the partition and its type is broken..
if HDD regenerator cannot fix it than u have to use it as slave hardisk in other computer than backup them all..


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## TriggerFinger (Jan 30, 2008)

*Re: "No bootable devices"*



Spidi said:


> Knoppix will not help because is it just unallocated space.. ok maybe it can write to external ntfs disks, but if I can't access my old files, that's worthless. -- if you cannot access your old files, then I really have doubts if any of the tools can help. As per you previous post, I have assumed (but I guess I may be wrong) that you can still access your old drive and that you need another drive (via USB/external enclosure) to copy your files to. It did not come to my mind that you cannot anymore access your hard drive. Given this case, Knoppix (or any other tool) is worthless indeed.
> 
> And I have read your comment, I just didn't understand it because I didn't know what a disk enclosure was. I've looked around for it now, and now I know, but I don't have one.
> 
> ...


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## Spidi (Aug 6, 2008)

*Re: "No bootable devices"*

No, I'm 100% sure there's nothing wrong with my hard drive because I've used alot of diagnostics tools (Fujitsu Siemens', Dell's, and some others) to scan and test it and they all said there were no errors at all.

I just noticed another thing. There is a 32Gb partition on my computer, together with the unallocated space. So I have a 250gb drive, with 32gb partition and 200gb unallocated space. On that unallocated space is my lost partition. Can I recover my lost files to the 32gb partition, and then install Vista on the unallocated partition, and then in Vista get the files back?

Edit @Triggerfinger: Yes, as unallocated space, but after Disk Commander scanned that space, it showed all the files of my previous installation so I think I can do something with them... Right now, I will let him scan again and try to recover my files to that 32gb partition.


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## TriggerFinger (Jan 30, 2008)

*Re: "No bootable devices"*

Exactly what I mean by 'you cannot access your files'. If it is seen as unallocated space, I really doubt if there is anything else that you can do. May be you can have Vista do a StartUp repair but that is just my two cents.

I will ask other team members if they know a work around.

Btw, when you see the unallocated space, what program/application/tool did you use to get this information (Hiren, PCLinuxOS, Ubuntu, BartPE/XP)?

EDIT:
If you have been using Disk Commander all along, try the others as well. If you have PCLinuxOS, use a FAT32/FAT hard drive via USB external enclosure.

EDIT 2:
I am asking you to try the others so we will know if this is just a problem unique to Disk Commander (that it cannot see the drive after the scan) or there is really a problem with your hard drive.

Do try the others, you have nothing to lose if you do. Doing such helps in the troubleshooting.


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## Spidi (Aug 6, 2008)

*Re: "No bootable devices"*

Vista startup repair didn't work. The unallocated space is seen with disk commander and Ontrack Easy Recovery pro, which I have tried too. Easy recovery pro finds files too, but not all of them and sorts them by extension, and it doesn't find .txt, and many important files of mine are .txt =) In fact, almost all the recovery tools on the Hiren boot cd just detect unallocated space, and that is correct. 

But programs like Disk commander and EasyRecovery pro can even find deleted partitions, and like that I hope to get my files back. The only tools that can recover files from unallocated space are disk commander and easy recovery pro, and of that two, I like disk commander the most because of the .txt reason. Easy recovery pro doesn't recognise my external hd either.

Note: when I loaded up disk commander just a few minutes ago, it detected my external hd at the beginning, but it was also "unallocated" (which is a lie, it's a perfectly normal ntfs drive). But what this means is: disk commander CAN detect usb drives! So now I will try with a fat32 one, maybe that will work. And if it doesn't, I'll try the 32gb partition.

Thanks for all the help, I know it's a fairly complex problem but you've all been amazingly helpful.

Spidi.


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## TriggerFinger (Jan 30, 2008)

*Re: "No bootable devices"*

It is not that complicated especially when using the right tools. It seems complicated because I think the partition information of the hard drive is corrupted...thus seen as unallocated. 

BUT... I also find it surprising that even the USB connected HDD is seen as unallocated which as you said is really NTFS. This means there must be something wrong how Disk Commander recognizes the drives. 

This is the reason why I encourage you to try Knoppix or BartPE/XP liveCD. But then again, if you still want to continue using Disk Commander, it is your choice.


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## Spidi (Aug 6, 2008)

*Re: "No bootable devices"*

Damn, it's fixed! Not only have I recovered some files, I recovered ALL files + my old Vista installation. In other words, my laptop is in the same shape as one week ago. I'll tell you how I did it.

In Disk Commander (Godlike tool, believe me), I selected the unallocated space and created an entry for it. Not a new partition, just a new entry with a drive letter and ntfs. Then I let it fix the MBR. Then I rebooted, threw in Vista DVD and did startup repair. It finished, rebooted, and woot, there was the long time no see windows startup menu. I chose "start Windows normally" and 2 minutes later I was crying out of pure luck =))

Thanks for all the help, I'll try to contribute to this forum as much as I can from now on!

Spidi.


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## TriggerFinger (Jan 30, 2008)

*Re: "No bootable devices"*

Wow! That is one great news. Thank you for sharing.


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## lilspike5g (Aug 7, 2008)

I also have a Dell latitude D820 that came with a 100GB and it crashed... it began by making some noises and it kept giving me the notice on some occasions that no bootable devices found and then crash!!! i just replaced it with a seagate 160GB and it started making some beeping sounds, and also has started giving me the occasional no bootable device message and i'm afraid this might also crash... Someone please tell me something.


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## red_phoenix (Jul 30, 2008)

lilspike5g said:


> I also have a Dell latitude D820 that came with a 100GB and it crashed... it began by making some noises and it kept giving me the notice on some occasions that no bootable devices found and then crash!!! i just replaced it with a seagate 160GB and it started making some beeping sounds, and also has started giving me the occasional no bootable device message and i'm afraid this might also crash... Someone please tell me something.


*could u move the thread? I mean split it..so we can read it easlily..
btw, if 2 hardisk showing same event, something wrong came not from ur hardisk..
instability of PSU could damage ur hardisk and make it unrecognized..*


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