Reboot and select proper boot device

[Jt1989]

Received this message yesterday. Tried getting into the bios setup screen using the 'delete' key but it freezes up on a screen that simply says "wait..." When I load and hit f8 for the bios popup it works fine, I select HDD and then get a black screen with a flashing black underscore in the upper left corner.

Tips?

 

[p_nut_uk]

There isn't any discs in drives or USB drives plugged in are there?

 

[Jt1989]

There isn't any discs in drives or USB drives plugged in are there?

No discs, no drives. Just mouse and keyboard.

 

[ESPclipse]

It depends on the motherboard as to what the boot menu key is. Sometimes its the Delete key. Sometimes its the F8 key. Sometimes its the F12 key. If all else fails, you will have to constantly deal with boot order in BIOS

 

[p_nut_uk]

Can you boot at all or just the bios?

 

[Jt1989]

Thanks for bearing with me, I'm not an expert with this stuff.

I'm given these options while the computer begins to boot up:

Press Del to run Setup
Press F8 for BBS Popup
Press Alt+F2 to execute Asus EZ Flash 2

If I don't choose one the "reboot and select boot device" message pops up.
When I hit 'Del' it takes me to a screen that says "Wait..." for an indefinite amount of time.
When I hit F8 it take me to a list of 5 things to choose from, when selected, each of them lead to the same error message "reboot and select boot device" except for when I choose "HDD" from the list which leads to a screen with a flashing white underscore in the top left corner.
When I hit Alt+F2 it takes me to a screen that says "loading" for an indefinite amount of time.

So I don't know what's up but was hoping someone here would. Thanks again.

 

[ESPclipse]

What OS you using? May be an MBR problem...

 

[Jt1989]

What OS you using? May be an MBR problem...

Windows 7

 

[ESPclipse]

Perhaps you can try to rewrite the MBR file. If you have some Windows repair disc around, I believe you can find some option on that for "fixing boot problems" or something of that nature. You shouldn't have a problem booting to compact disk if you have a disc reader. If not, I would install an iso of a modern Linux distro installer (such as Mint or Ubuntu) or boot-repair-disc to a flash drive. If you boot in to a distro installer, you will have to manually install and run yannubuntu's boot-repair utility, which can repair an MBR file. Likewise, boot-repair-disc should do this too, though I have yet to try it myself. Hopefully you will be able to boot into something!

EDIT
Almost forgot another option! If you have another personal computer around and a means of running the system hard drive of your problematic computer on that other personal computer, then you can usually rewrite the MBR file of the problem PC's drive with partition management software (like Partition Master)

 

[Jt1989]

Perhaps you can try to rewrite the MBR file. If you have some Windows repair disc around, I believe you can find some option on that for "fixing boot problems" or something of that nature. You shouldn't have a problem booting to compact disk if you have a disc reader. If not, I would install an iso of a modern Linux distro installer (such as Mint or Ubuntu) or boot-repair-disc to a flash drive. If you boot in to a distro installer, you will have to manually install and run yannubuntu's boot-repair utility, which can repair an MBR file. Likewise, boot-repair-disc should do this too, though I have yet to try it myself. Hopefully you will be able to boot into something!

EDIT
Almost forgot another option! If you have another personal computer around and a means of running the system hard drive of your problematic computer on that other personal computer, then you can usually rewrite the MBR file of the problem PC's drive with partition management software (like Partition Master)

Thanks! This seems right to me, I'll try it out as soon as I get done work.