Help! Laptop crashed, boot media missing, and BIOS can't detect hard drive.

[lifeisawkward]

Please, help. My laptop suddenly crashed and now it says "Boot media missing" when I restarted. After that, it always takes me to "Preparing Automatic Repair" and then the 'Troubleshoot' menu.

In the 'Troubleshoot' menu, it has two options: 'Reset this PC' and 'Advanced options'.

When I choose "Reset this PC", it asks me whether to keep my files or remove everything. I've tried both and it displays an error. When I choose to keep my files, it says that drive is locked and tells me to unlock the drive and try again. When I choose to remove everything, it says that there is a problem resetting the PC.

And then I've moved to "Advanced options". The options are: System Restore, System Image Recovery, Startup Repair, Command Prompt, UEFI Firmware Settings, and Go back to previous build. I've tried all of these and it all returned an error. When I chose UEFI Settings, it restarted to BIOS setting. And my BIOS can't detect my hard drive. DISKPART from Command Prompt can't detect it either.

Please, help me. My project is due in 3 days and I've got all my files in there. Is there a way to fix this? Or to recover my files? Please, I nees urgent help. Thank you very much.

 

[Trouble]

The first thing I would probably do is remove the drive from the computer and attach it to a second Windows Computer and see if I could rescue my critical data.
The fact that the BIOS nor DiskPart sees the disk is very scary, so I would definitely remove it now and see if another computer might at least see the data (if not the boot config structure) and allow you to save your files by copying them off onto the other computer or another external resource.

 

[Rosi]

Please, help. My laptop suddenly crashed and now it says "Boot media missing" when I restarted. After that, it always takes me to "Preparing Automatic Repair" and then the 'Troubleshoot' menu.

In the 'Troubleshoot' menu, it has two options: 'Reset this PC' and 'Advanced options'.

When I choose "Reset this PC", it asks me whether to keep my files or remove everything. I've tried both and it displays an error. When I choose to keep my files, it says that drive is locked and tells me to unlock the drive and try again. When I choose to remove everything, it says that there is a problem resetting the PC.

And then I've moved to "Advanced options". The options are: System Restore, System Image Recovery, Startup Repair, Command Prompt, UEFI Firmware Settings, and Go back to previous build. I've tried all of these and it all returned an error. When I chose UEFI Settings, it restarted to BIOS setting. And my BIOS can't detect my hard drive. DISKPART from Command Prompt can't detect it either.

Please, help me. My project is due in 3 days and I've got all my files in there. Is there a way to fix this? Or to recover my files? Please, I nees urgent help. Thank you very much.

 

[Rosi]

Get a SATA to USB cable or a SATA to USB caddy and remove the hard drive from your computer and use it as an external hard drive on a different one. If the drive is not damaged, you will be able to see all the files and copy them.
If you happen to have an install disk, you might try to boot from it and use the Repair option.
It fixed my boot failure some time ago.

 

[CUNL2]

If your BIOS cannot detect your drive you've got big problems. If the drive was the original in the computer, your OS or drive is playing up. Boot media missing can mean the boot order in BIOS is starting from the wrong hardware. But if your BIOS does not list your hard drive you can't redirect it as first boot. That leaves drive disconnected, can happen in PC towers or desktops, loose or faulty SATA cables. But in all computers big & small, usual suspect is OS. In that case you can kiss all your hard work goodbye. Never ever keep what you think is important on a computers hard drive, just burn it to your CD / DVD rewriter blank discs. Good news if any, your computer is in good shape BIOS is more important than OS. OS can be re-installed, use advanced mode & delete & format the drive. Speaking of which your last chance saloon, if you have a recovery / installation disc. Get your computer to boot from that, I use 10 but 7 PRO disc had a repair option on boot up, it's better than usual repair.

 

[Jeannette Thompson]

You will find the problem will be Window's 10 updates. You could try to download an IOS flash drive or CD from msft.social/LaliTe on someone's computer. You will need to get into your boot menu and change it to CD or flash drive. Try switching computer on but before it loads press F2 or F8 or shift repeatedly to get you to your boot menu. Good luck