Windows 8.1 Alienware No Bootable Device Found - Press Any Key to Continue

[adammitchell]

Hi all,

I am having a problem with my Alienware 13. I was in the middle of using it and the computer crashed. Upon attempting to reboot, I received the dreaded no bootable device found error message.

I attempted to solve the issue in the BIOS, but was unable to boot back into Windows. I assumed the drive was probably borked, so I took the opportunity to upgrade from the standard Toshiba HDD that came with the machine to the Toshiba 480GB SSD Q300.

Obviously, the new disk had no OS on it, so I made a bootable Windows USB and attempted to boot.

I am still getting the same error message.

I can see the new drive in the BIOS, but for whatever reason, it is not seeing my bootable USB. Because of this, there's no way to adjust the boot order and get the Windows installer to launch. I have tried all three of the USB ports on the machine and none of them work.

What am I doing wrong? I tried searching the forums, and I see this is a common error, but I haven't seen anyone with the issue of their USB device not being read.

I'm stuck

 

[adammitchell]

Figured it out.

Here's what I did:

1) Pressed F2 to run the setup utility (BIOS)
2) Navigated to the Advanced tab
3) Disabled Safe Boot
4) Enabled Legacy Boot Options
5) Changed the boot option from UEFI to Legacy
6) This allowed me to select my boot order (selected USB as #1 in the boot priority)

Installing Windows as I type this.