I've got an old PC that just boots straight into BIOS and tells me there's no OS found. I've already checked the cables and updated the BIOS, and my 6TB HDD looks fine, but I can't get it to boot into Windows 10. Sometimes it skips the BIOS splash screen and brings up the Intel Boot Agent or a message saying there's "No Bootable Device – insert boot disc and press any key." Here's what I know about my setup: the CPU is an Intel i7 (probably 3rd gen), it has 32GB of DDR3 RAM, the storage is a 6TB HDD, and it's running on an Intel Skull series motherboard. I also reset the CMOS, but I'm still having issues. I'm worried that the Windows bootloader might be corrupted or there could be something wrong with my motherboard. Can anyone help me figure this out?
4 Answers
It sounds like your PC might be stuck in legacy mode. Do you know if Windows was installed in UEFI or legacy mode? You can check, but it might be tricky if the BIOS is giving you trouble.
You might want to try repartitioning the drive into a smaller bootable volume if it was larger than 2TB. Some older systems have trouble booting from drives that big without the right BIOS settings, especially if it's trying to use UEFI.
I don't think that's the issue since it used to work fine until recently, so I'm hesitant to try that.
You might want to consider reinstalling Windows on that HDD. If you still want to try USB booting, you could give that another shot too, just in case it wasn't set up right before.
I actually mentioned in my post that I tried booting from USB, but it didn't work.
Did the HDD ever successfully boot Windows before? If so, try flashing a Windows 10 ISO onto a USB drive, disconnect the HDD, and see if it boots from the USB instead.
Yes, it did boot before, but I already disconnected it and got the same "Boot Device Not Found" message.
I'm not sure since it was previously owned. The boot options in the BIOS are a bit confusing, but I can check.