HP 23" All in One - No boot disk detected or the disk has failed

[carmen617]

So, client dropped this off with this error message. My first thought was a failed drive, so i took the drive out and ran it though diagnostics. No problem with the drive. The system has built in diagnostics as well, and I ran it through a run-in test for hours - no problems detected.

I did some research and saw possible cable or connection issues, followed steps to repair, no joy. Came across a suggestion - boot to bios set-up utility, choose "apply defaults and exit", system will start right up. Well, that is correct. I can do that and system will boot normally. However, that has to be done for every boot - easy for me, clearly not a fix I can give back to a client.

Have tried resetting boot to legacy mode - tells me i don't have an OS. Anybody seen this before or have any suggestions?

 

[Porthos]

CMOS Battery?
Bios Update?
Windows Version?

 

[carmen617]

Windows 10. CMOS battery fine, system is about 2 years old. No bios update available.

 

[Markverhyden]

Try reflashing the BIOS anyways. And is there a jumper to hard reset the CMOS?

 

[Porthos]

Windows 10.

Upgraded or has it had a clean install?

 

[carmen617]

I would guess it's been upgraded, although i didn't do the upgrade myself. I don't know how to look for a jumper to reset the CMOS. I can certainly try reflashing the BIOS.

 

[Porthos]

I would guess it's been upgraded,

Grab a spare known working drive and clean install and update the drivers with SDI and see how things go.

 

[Markverhyden]

This thread rang a bell. After doing a search I came across a solution post which I'm pretty sure was posted on here as well. Sounds odd, but some claim it works. Second to last post in the thread.

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Deskto...nable-to-resolve-a-boot-failures/td-p/3931332

 

[Easy PC]

I would try a clean re-install on a new drive - if there is no new bios updates. Also, I had a problem with a home built pc a few months ago, which had an Asus motherboard. Cloned the mechanical hard drive to a new SSD, worked fine for a few weeks then stopped booting. Would only boot from the mechanical drive, didn't matter what settings were used. I did a new clone from the SSD and set the boot to GPT, instead of MBR, and this worked!! This might be worth a try.

 

[carmen617]

This thread rang a bell. After doing a search I came across a solution post which I'm pretty sure was posted on here as well. Sounds odd, but some claim it works. Second to last post in the thread.

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Deskto...nable-to-resolve-a-boot-failures/td-p/3931332

Thanks Mark, that was actually the first thing i tried. I did the "pull the drive in and out 10-20 times" trick twice and it didn't help either time. I also tried reseating the sata cables, no luck. So odd that resetting the bios to default works each time, but of course that's not a solution. I'm going to try a clean install next on a known good drive.

 

[carmen617]

Just an update - a new drive and a fresh install fixed it. Anybody have any idea why resetting bios to default on each boot would have worked to load a failing drive or a messed up Windows install?

 

[mr m]

This is a weird one. Maybe it's the way the UEFI handles the initialization process. When the BIOS or UEFI are initialized they check for stable power, video, the various buses etc and then look for a partition to boot. Then the BIOS looks at the first sector of the HDD for the code to execute while the UEFI reads a file stored on a small system partition on the system drive. Perhaps there was corruption in that partition or a virus that only effects the boot process and not Win 10. After the reset it gets cleared for some reason.

Who knows. I'm just grasping at straws. At least you fixed it and can get paid.

 

[Porthos]

Just an update - a new drive and a fresh install fixed it.

I always keep a drive ready for that. Glad my suggestion helped.