[SOLVED] Laptop keeps booting into the BIOS after restoring to default settings

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A laptop I own recently gave me this "REBOOT AND SELECT PROPER BOOT DEVICE OR INSERT BOOT MEDIA IN SELECTED BOOT DEVICE" error, along with telling me to press any key. I had no idea what to do, so I searched up a fix online and found a youtube video telling me to reboot the device, go into BIOS settings, and restore the BIOS settings to default. I saved changes and exit, but now the original error message doesn't appear, and the laptop instead is booting to the BIOS. Not sure what to do. The only noticeable changes were 1 boot option missing after I restored default settings, which is the CD-ROM drive, not sure if that's important. The main hard disk drive is still the #1 boot option which remains unchanged.

 

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UPDATE : I've tried removing the boot drive and putting it back into the laptop. It worked for a while, booting into windows, then it showed a blue screen crash, and then promptly turned itself off. I restarted, and now I am back to square one. The same error message still appears and repeating the boot drive replacing method doesn't work anymore. Another change is that the 2nd boot option which is the DVD drive has appeared back again.

 

[Deleted member 14196]

Maybe your hard drive has failed

 

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Maybe your hard drive has failed

It very well might be the case; the laptop is pretty old, almost half a decade. Many files on it, though. The one time I booted to windows successfully, the blue screen error said something about not detecting a drive, or something related to a drive error. Is there any way to salvage this laptop and its data? Perhaps I could retrieve the files by plugging it back into my pc instead

 

[Deleted member 14196]

Use a USB connection to retrieve files off it if it’s possible