If you encounter an error saying, “Boot Device Not Found” when you turn on your Windows 10 computer, then you’ve come to the right place as this post will guide you on how you can fix this problem. Apart from the error message, you will also see a message that states, “Please install an operating system on your hard disk, Hard Disk<xxx>”. You will then be asked to tap the F2 key to initiate the System Diagnostics.
If you install the Windows operating system, it becomes the boot device, and when your computer boots, the UEFI or the BIOS looks for the operating installed on your drive and continues the process. So when you encounter the “Boot Device Not Found” error, this means that the UEFI or the BIOS wasn’t able to locate the drive where it can boot.
There are several suggestions you can check out to resolve this error. You can try checking the connection with your boot drive or change the boot order. You can also fix the Boot Record from Recovery and see if the primary partition is active or not. But before you troubleshoot the problem, make sure that you have a bootable Windows USB drive ready since two of the options provided below will require you to boot into the Advanced Recovery mode. Once you have this covered, proceed to each one of the following options.
Option 1 – Try checking the connection with the boot drive
If you have a custom computer that comes with a cabinet, you might want to open it and remove any connected power supply, and then check the wires. As you know, drives are connected with the motherboard using a cable. So all you have to do is check if both ends are connected properly and make sure that the connection is not loose. You could also try to unplug the cable and plug it back in.
Option 2 – Try changing the boot order
You might also want to try changing the boot order of your computer. Each time a computer boots, the BIOS or the UEFI follows a boot order. It is the one that tells where to first look for the boot drive and if for some reason, a USB is connected to your computer and the first boot device found in the USB, then you have resolved the problem. All you have to do is to remove the USB device and boot or go into the BIOS and change the boot order yourself.
Option 3 – Try to rebuild the BCD files
The next thing you can do to resolve the issue is to Rebuild Boot Configuration Data or BCD files.
- You can start by booting into the installation environment for Windows 10 from an installation media.
- After that, click on Repair your computer and on the blue screen, select Troubleshoot and then select the Advanced options menu.
- From there, select Command Prompt and once you open it, enter each one of the commands given below by sequence.
- bootrec /FixMbr
- bootrec /FixBoot
- bootrec /ScanOS
- bootrec /RebuildBcd
- Once you’re done executing the commands given above, type “exit” to close the Command Prompt window and then restart your computer and see if it fixed the “Boot Device Not Found” error.
Option 4 – Try setting the System Partition to Active
Like the first given option, you also have to make sure that you have a bootable Windows 10 USB drive before you proceed to set the System Partition to Active. Once you have it covered, refer to these steps:
- Boot your computer using the bootable Windows 10 USB drive.
- Next, click Next when you get to the Welcome Screen.
- Then click on Repair your computer located at the bottom left part of the window and select Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > Command Prompt.
- After opening Command Prompt, type the following command and hit Enter to start the Diskpart utility. It is a command line-based utility just like Command Prompt but has a UAC prompt once you provoke it. So if you encounter a UAC prompt, just click on Yes to proceed.
diskpart
- Now type the following command:
list disk
- From there, select your primary disk by typing the following command:
select disk number
- After that, list all the partitions on the selected disk by entering the following command:
list partition
- The command you just entered will list all the partitions created on your PC including both types of partitions that are visible to a normal user in the File Explorer as well as the ones created by Windows 10 by default which helps it in storing the boot files and other important system files.
- Now type the following command to select the partition that is usually around 100 MB in size:
select partition number
- Finally, type the following command to mark the partition active:
active
- Then type the “exit” command to exit the disk part utility.
Once it’s done, the primary drive should now be active and you should now be able to boot into your computer without the “Boot Device Not Found” error.