"No bootable device": Help me figure out what happened?

Just trying to figure out what happened.

Yesterday, I went into Msconfig. Went into Advanced Options in the Boot Menu and tweaked the number of processors (to 8) and memory (left it at default number). Then I went to disabling some services and start up programs (easy stuff of course). I really just wanted to speed up my system boot up time. From the POST to starting Windows Vista.

I must also note that I did install Virtual Box as well and installed Fedora 14 and XP. But I restarted plenty of times since then.

When I saw the "no bootable device" message, I quickly started going into BIOS and making sure everything was correct. Made sure the HDD was the first boot device, etc. Even switched back to the default settings. Yes, I even opened up the computer itself and made sure the SATA 0 cable was in correctly. Even unplugged the other SATA drives. Still nothing.

I even used a few Windows DVDs (7, Vista discs) attempting to run fix MBR, but Repair said I'm not running the correct Windows version. I must note this is an OEM version of Windows Vista Home 64-bit too. The discs I used for repair were 64-bit too.

When I tried using my original OEM DVD to act like I'm installing Vista, it did notice the hard drive, but it noted that it was using a GPT style partition. Was this changed on me? If so, how? If it's normal, then I really don't know how my partition got screwed up like this. Anyone wanna try their guess?

 

You can't use 8 processors unless your cpu supports it. Set it back to 1 or whatever your cpu has and try again. Disabling services can also cause serious problems unless you are quite certain of what you are doing.

 

I would if I could.. but I gotta get past the "no bootable device" thing first.

The services I disabled were very harmless.. like Adobe, so I highly doubt that would prohibit my start up. Just thought I'd mention that, anyway. Anything's a possibility, though. Thanks for the reply.

 

Greetings, css1323.

As far as I know, you'll have to mount the drive as a slave in a functioning Windows machine and use DiskPart to initialize and format the drive. That, or burn a drive partitioning software to CD/DVD and boot to that disk.

Something must have crossed paths somewhere - your MBR has been erased or corrupted in some way. The fact that you had Fedora installed seems to indicate that its own boot manager has tried to take over.

 

Fedora was only installed in VirtualBox

 

That's it.. VirtualBox only.. its supposed to be stuck inside its own virtual world. (Did I just say that? lol.)

I'm most likely just going to reinstall Windows.. but, I'd still like to know why this happened. Ugh! :confused

 

Ah! My bad - sorry. :-o

 

No need to be.. thanks for taking the time to reply.

 

Won't the Win7 startup disc give you the option of Startup Repair? You may have already tried it. That should look for a Windows installation and try to fix the boot files.

 

I tried going to "Repair", yep. It didn't even bother looking for any installations.. it plainly says I need the correct Windows version. Which is mad. :confused

 

Anyone else wanna take a crack at it?

 

try this fix...http://www.vistax64.com/general-discussion/119892-help-vista-install.html ...hope that helps...the reply from jowie is the one you want...