Reboot and select proper boot device

[Blackhawk748]

So my desktop, which was working fine last night just had this pop up when I tried to turn it on today. What the hell is it and how can I make it stop being stupid?

[factotum]

Sounds like your actual boot device has failed. Try jiggling the cables a bit to see if one has come loose, but failing that, you're probably looking at a replacement hard drive.

[Blackhawk748]

Sounds like your actual boot device has failed. Try jiggling the cables a bit to see if one has come loose, but failing that, you're probably looking at a replacement hard drive.

That's what I was afraid of. Oh well I needed to expand my memory space anyhow and the vast majority of ny data is on the second drive regardless.

I'll unplug the cables and hope for the best, but I'll get on Newegg and grab me a new HDD

[Blackhawk748]

Ok, quick question. My computer has a second HDD installed in it already, could I just swap the cables and make my secondary the primary and install an OS on it, or would I have to wipe it or something?

[factotum]

Well, you *can* install Windows on a pre-existing partition, but it's not something I'd risk if that partition had the only copy of my data on it. No idea about Linux if that's your OS of choice.

[Kato]

You shouldn't install an OS on a pre-existing Partition, even if I think some allow you to do that. My best guess is try to figure out what is wrong with your first hard drive. If you can, make a bootable iso or USB and see if the drive can still be found and if the data is intact. If so, there might just be some minor defect and you can try some repair Utility to fix it. If it's something worse, you might still be able to reinstall a new OS on the first drive, though if it suddenly had some Problem it's probably safer to get a new one.

[snowblizz]

You shouldn't install an OS on a pre-existing Partition, even if I think some allow you to do that. My best guess is try to figure out what is wrong with your first hard drive. If you can, make a bootable iso or USB and see if the drive can still be found and if the data is intact. If so, there might just be some minor defect and you can try some repair Utility to fix it. If it's something worse, you might still be able to reinstall a new OS on the first drive, though if it suddenly had some Problem it's probably safer to get a new one.

Yea this.

It can be something simple to fix. Maybe CMOS battery ran out and it forgot where to boot from.

Modern Windows likes to create a lto of hidden aprtitions for swpa disk and recovery and system disks so trying to install to something with data on risks wiping it. Am fairly sure last time I installed Windows it told me it'd wipe everything.