(Dell Inspiron) No bootable device

SandeepP said:

Its great to hear that after BIOS update system seems to be working fine. Please check the system at your convenience and let us know the results.

Because of the intermittent nature of this problem (occurring perhaps 10 times over the past three months), whether or not it is resolved is still unknown. I will post back as noted above. Thank you again, for the diagnostic links you provided.

I have had another hard crash. I had closed the computer for a short time, and when I re-opened the lid, I was met with the dreaded black screen. After the patent information came these messages:

Realtek PCIe FE Family Controller Series V1.25 (4/19/11)
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable.

PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE Rom.
No boot device found. Press any key to reboot the machine.

Note that pressing "any key" did NOT reboot the machine. I had to shut down and fresh boot, which brought me to an Error Recovery screen with safe mode boot options.

I did boot into safe mode and looked in the Event Viewer Windows Logs, where I found several entries which might possibly prove useful in understanding what's happening here. I saved the entries as an .evtx file, but the forum won't all it to be uploaded. Not sure how to easily provide the information contained in these events...or even if they will be helpful.

Follow this guide on System recovery options and Startup repair, you will need to burn a Windows 7 Pro 64bit Windows 7 ISO for your computer looking at your specs. not only use the top default option, but run FixMBR and chkdsk in the command prompt option in order. Also, If this does not fix your problem, look into this guide >> >> Windows Seven Failure to Start and follolw all possible steps, PLEASE ASK QUESTIONS, do not just skip a step because you don't understand it

Hi redfang, I've created the system recovery disk and ran Startup repair (3 times, per the link instructions). If found no problems. I then ran chkdsk from a DOS prompt with also no problems. I could not get FixMBR to run. Before I proceed to your last instruction, can you help me get FixMBR to run please?

yessir, what do you need help with?
flickering screen & spotty Start menu --I saw this, i recommend running SFC Scannow also
Read this also, it'll help with FixMBR Also, I'm sure there's a tutorial here about bootrec.exe somewhere, if now, I'll look into it :)

I ran SFC scannow from the system repair disk, but it didn't find/do anything. FixMBR & bootrec.exe both say they're not recognized as an internal or external command, operable command, or batch file.

For the record, I would note that these problems have been occurring almost from Day 1 (if I haven't already said that), and that I do have MBAM Pro installed (one of my long-time trusted tools), and do not feel there is an infection problem.

SandeepP said:

Please check the system BIOS and let me know if the hard-drive is been detected on the system. If it is detected fine then run the diagnostics on the system posted in earlier post by me.

If it is not detected then you should swap the sata cables with the DVD drive by following the manual at the link below:

Manual for Optiplex 980

Keep us posted with the results so we can advise you further.

I checked the BIOS by rebooting and hitting F2 until Setup came up. Here are the results:

Fixed HDD was present and identified
SATA ODD was PLDs DVD
mSATA Device was [not detected]

I ran the diagnostics you requested as previously stated on page 1 of this thread.

I'm not sure how the Optiplex 980 (mini tower) manual would help me swap any cables on my
Inspiron (laptop), but I guess that doesn't matter since the HDD was detected by BIOS.