start up problem

[Lisa]

After turning on my computer I get the following message -
reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media
in selected boot device. What is wrong and what do I do to
fix this?

 

[Mack]

Lisa

Check your floppy and cd drives to see if you have left a
disk in one of them.

Mack

 

[Guest]

-----Original Message-----
Lisa

Check your floppy and cd drives to see if you have left a
disk in one of them.

Mack

The drives are empty. Any other ideas? Thanks.

 

[Mack]

Have you changed any settings in your BIOS recently?

It would be a good idea to look in your BIOS to see what
Boot order you have - when you power on your PC it will
tell you which key to hit to enter BIOS (most commonly the
DEL key), you will then need to find Boot order, see if
your Hard Drive is set to first boot device.


Mack

 

[Mack]

Lisa

Also go to www.google.com and type the message you get in
the search box - I found many references to this problem
that may (or may not) be relevent to your PC, for instance
there is a fix there if your Pc is a Gateway.

Mack

 

[Lisa]

No, I haven't changed anything recently. I will check
that. It did this once before (apparently by itself)and I
was able to restore my machine with the default settings
in the BIOS. But when I looked for those again, it wasn't
evident where they were. I will look at it again tonight
after work. Thanks for your help. Lisa

 

[Alex Nichol]

No, I haven't changed anything recently. I will check
that. It did this once before (apparently by itself)and I
was able to restore my machine with the default settings
in the BIOS. But when I looked for those again, it wasn't
evident where they were. I will look at it again tonight
after work.

At power on hit the appropriate hot key for the BIOS setup.

There are then two common places to look:

in a BIOS settings page, as 'Boot Order (where you use PageDn to cycle
round various standard setups, choosing one that starts C: for the hard
disk)

In a specific Boot Page, where you use the arrows to select the device
you want first, then the + on the number pad to move it up. Again
getting the hard disk to the top.

Either way then ESC to get back from there, and Exit, saving settings

If that then does not boot, something has damaged the hard disk's
initial items - come back and get suggestions