HP Envy Desktop Boot Device Not Found

[Velvis]

Client said he came home and the computer was displaying the BIOS message:

BOOT DEVICE NOT FOUND
Please install an OS on your hard disk.

I ran the built in extended diagnostics and the extended hard drive tests and everything passed.

I pulled the drive out and mounted it and successfully copied the data off of it without issue.

What would cause the computer to have this issue?

 

[Philippe]

Damaged boot partition (ESP)...

 

[ThatPlace928]

In my experience, on 9 x out of 10 laptops with that message, it's a drive that's not making a good connection. It happens most often on laptops people carry around than those just sitting on a desk.

Open it up, push the drive back in, then make sure the caddy is nice and tight, then reboot. If that doesn't fix it, then check the next possibility.

 

[timeshifter]

In my experience, on 9 x out of 10 laptops, it's a drive that's not making a good connection.

Interesting. I presume these are consumer grade laptops not ThinkPad T series or Dell Latitudes? If so then that might reinforce the case for business grade laptops.

 

[ThatPlace928]

Interesting. I presume these are consumer grade laptops not ThinkPad T series or Dell Latitudes? If so then that might reinforce the case for business grade laptops.

It's been a variety of different brands. If they get moved / carried around a lot or bumped hard, they can come loose. I've even had a couple of AIOs do that. Only a couple.

 

[Markverhyden]

Damaged boot partition (ESP)...

Seen that several times. Even used Test Disk, from Christophe Grenier, to recover boot sector/partition table. But with modern OS's it's not that simple anymore.

 

[Diggs]

There may have been a power hiccup and the BIOS defaulted to Legacy instead of UEFI (or the other way around). I've seen it happen a few times but that was Win10 days.

 

[Rigo]

Client said he came home and the computer was displaying the BIOS message:

BOOT DEVICE NOT FOUND
Please install an OS on your hard disk.

I ran the built in extended diagnostics and the extended hard drive tests and everything passed.

I pulled the drive out and mounted it and successfully copied the data off of it without issue.

What would cause the computer to have this issue?

Try EaseUs Partition Manager boot repair tool. With the patient drive slaved to a repair system with the tool.
It has resurrected a few hairy similar cases for me.
Tried it out of desperation the first time and it worked, though not for all cases.
Nice era when we could boot from an install media and get the OS back to life

 

[Philippe]

Seen that several times. Even used Test Disk, from Christophe Grenier, to recover boot sector/partition table. But with modern OS's it's not that simple anymore.

IMHO it's better to use the WinRE tools:
- BootRec /fixboot
- BootRec /RebuildBCD or BcdBoot C:\Windows, which will rebuild the content of the boot partition.

 

[Velvis]

So, I put a known working hard drive in to the HP Envy and it still comes up with the same error. So I don't think there is any issue with the hard drive or the boot partition.

What would cause the error but at same time the BIOS is able to run all the drive tests? (Ie it wouldn't be a Sata cable issue if the tests run.

 

[fincoder]

So, I put a known working hard drive in to the HP Envy and it still comes up with the same error.

BIOS settings not matching the OS install? I'm thinking UEFI vs Legacy BIOS, GPT partitioning scheme vs MBR.
Did you try a quick OS install with a spare drive in the computer? What's the exact model of the HP Envy?