No Bootable Device at boot – what to do?

Among other problems that a user may encounter when turning on a laptop or PC, there is a No Bootable Device message on a black screen (translation into Russian: there is no bootable device), sometimes “No bootable device – insert boot disk and press any key”, and often just before the problem appears, everything is working properly.

This manual details what to do when a No Bootable Device error appears on a laptop from Acer, HP, Lenovo, Dell and others. However, the error can also occur on a desktop computer.

• First steps for a No Bootable Device error
• Boot options and boot device availability
• Video instruction

First Steps When a No Bootable Device Error Appears

If until recently everything worked fine, no action was taken with the laptop (for example, installing new disks) and the next time you turn on the laptop you are faced with the No Bootable Device message, it makes sense to try the following simple method of solving the problem first.

1. Turn off the laptop by long holding the power button (about 10 seconds).
2. Disconnect any external storage devices from the laptop: flash drives, memory cards, external hard drives, or better, everything that has recently been connected via USB.
3. Turn the laptop back on and check if the problem persists.

The described turns out to be workable by no means always, but sometimes it avoids the need to perform the steps described below and saves time.

And one more thing that should be taken into account before moving on: if an error appears and disappears – for example, after sleep, hibernation, or even shutdown, there is an error, but after a reboot – no, and the laptop has Windows 10, Windows 11 or 8.1, try disabling fast startup and installing the chipset drivers from the laptop manufacturer’s website for your model – this may fix the problem.

Checking Boot Parameters and Boot Device Availability

Note: all of the following is relevant for cases when a disk with a system is installed on your laptop. If you installed a new blank SSD or HDD, then you just need to install the system from a USB flash drive so that the error does not appear.

As mentioned above, the text of the message No bootable device – insert boot disk and press any key itself translates as “There is no bootable device – insert a bootable disk and press any key.” However, it is not always the case that such a disk is really missing, the reason may be different:

• Incorrect boot order in BIOS / UEFI, especially after installing new disks.
• Incorrect boot parameters (for example, the BIOS is set to boot only in UEFI mode, and the system on the disk is installed in Legacy mode), can occur after resetting the parameters or after updating the BIOS.
• Damage to the system bootloader.

All this should be checked, for this:

1. Turn off the laptop or PC by holding the power button for a long time, turn it on and press the BIOS / UEFI entry key before the No bootable device message appears. Usually this is F2or Fn + F2 , but there are other keys: as a rule, the required key is indicated on the first boot screen (for example, Press F2 to enter Setup).
2. In BIOS, go to the Boottab : as a rule, this can be done using the “Right” arrows.
3. Check the Boot Modesetting (in the case of an Acer laptop, the boot mode switching may differ on others). If it is set to “UEFI”, try setting “Legacy” and vice versa: UEFI instead of Legacy, then save the settings with the F10 key (or select “Exit Saving Changes” on the Exit tab) and check if the error disappears the next time you turn it on. Also, if the UEFI boot was set and Secure Boot – “Enabled”, you can try to disable Secure Boot (set to Disabled) and also check if this solved the problem. If not, revert to the original parameters and then move on to the next step.
4. See if your primary hard drive or SSD is installed first in the list of boot devices under the Boot tab. If not, move it to the first place (select it and use the keys that will be indicated in the help, as a rule, in the panel on the right, usually F5 and F6). If Windows Boot Manager is listed, it’s best to put it first, not the drive itself. Again, we save the BIOS settings and see if this solved the problem.
5. If the system hard disk or SSD is missing from the list of boot devices, it may be worth trying to physically reconnect the disk, it may also indicate a malfunction of the drive.
6. If the disk is present, the system was installed on it, but the error persists, bootloader repair can help, in more detail: How to restore the Windows 10 bootloader .
7. If, when restoring the bootloader in the command line, you find that some of the disk partitions have RAW in the file system type, check the disk file system there in the command line, for more details: How to fix a RAW disk .