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No boot sector on internal hard drive
An older lady donated this laptop to me to fix up. It's in perfect original condition. I installed a new 240 GB SSD from Crucial and newer Intel wireless card.
I got the "No boot sector on internal hard drive" when initially installing Windows 10 from the USB drive. By pressing F1, Windows 10 installed perfectly.
I'm using this laptop now (as I'm typing) and it works perfectly. My only problem with it is that every 10th boot or so (unpredictable) it will not boot and show the "No boot sector on internal hard drive" again. By using F1 it will boot to Windows fine again.
I'm pretty sure this can be fixed by fixing the boot sector, but I hesitate to do it until I'm sure how to do it and would appreciate any help or advise on this. Thanks
fullyard
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August 16th, 2022 23:00
Sorry for being late to the party, but did you check and try out some various options which might be available for you in the bios section regarding drive settings and or boot options and behavior?
I remember using my dekstop pc with win7, never had a prob , updated to win 10 and then i seriously got stuck in a mode where it kept telling me that i got no bootable drive inserted - after updating the bios - tadaaaa - the boot manager recognized the drive and all good.
One thing to keep in mind - if i am right - this device here is from 2008??? I did successfully replace old HDDS on 3 different notebooks with new SSDs, but none of these was older than 2012 - and they had at least win 7 or win 8.1 on them - did upgrade all of them with new ram and fan cleaning and such - windows 10 working like it was always meant to do so.
In my personal opinion - what is the latest date in terms of drivers and bios updates and such regarding this unit there? Did you install the support assist and have Dell check the unit for latest drivers and bios update and such? Does this work at all?
It might be a really tough task getting such an old unit get to work the right way with win 10 - i think it is possible, but personally i dont think that your boot sector is really messed up - rather more like a compatibility old bios / hw - interface thing. Most of the hard drives are backwards compatible - but that is not a 100% guarantee that everything will work fine.
Also i did find this older thread here , might help as well?
https://www.dell.com/community/Inspiron/Dell-Inspiron-1545-SSD-upgrade/td-p/7290498
All the best - i know the feeling of wanting to keep older hardware to stay alive - especially in a modern throwaway society!
Cheers
Fullyard
Stellarplacebo
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August 18th, 2022 08:00
Fullyard, appreciate that older thread, it had some interesting info.
I think you are probably right about the compatibility old bios / hw - interface thing. Support assist ran fine with no problems but did not find any newer bios updates, so I think I think I am stuck with that version.
Windows 10 runs fine and system file checker is good. So, I think I’m just going to live with the two beeps and F1 and use it as is unless a solution is found later.
Thanks to everyone for your help.
ieee488
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August 13th, 2022 10:00
bad SSD? It can happen even with a new brand new Crucial SSD.
check the connector on the laptop?
Stellarplacebo
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August 13th, 2022 11:00
I should have mentioned, that oddly enough, I had ordered two 240 GB SSDs from Crucial. When I tried the other one, I had the same problem with it also.
Regarding the connector, the SSDs require a spacer to be attached to them to take up the space that the thicker original HDD has. When sliding the SSDs in the laptop I did notice that they both "seated" more easily than the original HDD. The original HDD seats a little firmer. But the SSD and HDD connectors both measure identical in height and width. I didn't measure the gold pin thicknesses, but they look the same.
I should mention that the original HDD does not have a booting problem.
Since the laptop boots correctly most of the time, I would think you could rebuild the master boot record from within Windows. Searching Google, I have seen several different descriptions how to do it, but I really don't want to mess it up.
ieee488
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August 13th, 2022 11:00
Replace the CMOS battery?
Stellarplacebo
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August 13th, 2022 12:00
I'll give it a try, thanks.
Stellarplacebo
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August 14th, 2022 13:00
Nope. Thought that would be easy ...but nope, have to completely disassemble the laptop to just change the CMOS battery, ridiculous. Anyway, the clock is not having problems, so I think it's ok. I'll look into it more later.
I ran across this from Microsoft during my search, and I would like to get some opinions. This is what I was thinking about to fix the MBR.
Fixing Corrupted MBR in Windows 10 - TechNet Articles - United States (English) - TechNet Wiki (microsoft.com)
ann_droid
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August 15th, 2022 04:00
Hi
Not sure if this is a good idea for the inexperienced or un-initiated, and of course the term MBR was used, which I dont have, mine is UEFI.
DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME.
Obviously C:\>dir A:\*.* /s will list scores of files,
Total Files Listed:
153 File(s) 66,698,877 bytes
163 Dir(s) 200,724,480 bytes free
WHICH ARE BEST LEFT ALONE.
I do multi-boot.
I would not discount the count.
Maybe every X operations the SSD needs a TRIM and that is why it stumbles at the first hurdle.
ieee488
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August 15th, 2022 07:00
See if there is new firmware for the SSD from Crucial.com .
Stellarplacebo
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August 15th, 2022 09:00
Went to Crucial and installed Crucial Storage Executive. Very cool app. Gave a lot of information on the SSD. Says the latest firmware revision M6CR054 is installed. Thanks
Stellarplacebo
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August 15th, 2022 09:00
3 Argentum, thanks, your post is way over my head, but I understand your point about the inexperienced or un-initiated and won't do anything until very sure how to do it. I should say that I'm 78 years old and have been building computers for friends, etc. as a hobby since Windows 98, but still dumb as a stick when it comes to the multi-boot, virtual machines, and installations, etc. So, your help is very much appreciated. I am really interested in your suggestion about the UEFI. I don't remember the last time if I used legacy when I installed Windows or what I used. I need to find out, I guess. But I'm pretty sure I tried all the diagnostics and repair options Windows allowed during several attempts and several installations trying to get the "No boot sector on internal hard drive" problem resolved.
Saltgrass
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August 15th, 2022 13:00
You might try running the bcdedit command in an admin command prompt and pasting the results.
The F1 is normally used if something in the Bios had changed or needed attention. Since this is a Dell system, it was probably originally set to use a RAID configuration.
Knowing the complete model number may help.
Saltgrass
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August 15th, 2022 17:00
It is a Legacy Install. The BCD Store looks normal for such a system.
We don't usually make a system's Service TAG number public.
A Dell Inspiron 1545 is what I have. It is fairly old and may have problems but mine seems OK.
When you replace an SSD in that system you have to make note of the drives thickness. If it is one of the thinner ones, the connection at the back needs to be helped to make good contact, unless you used a shim to raise the connections on the drive just a bit to make the connections on the computer.
It takes about the thickness of a credit card or the difference between the thickness of the thicker and thinner drives. When I insert my drive, I normally have to fiddle with it, so a good connection is made.
Stellarplacebo
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August 15th, 2022 17:00
On the back of the laptop, it says Model # PP41L. Somehow in my notes I have written Dell 1545-4374P, ....not sure where that came from.
Ran bcdedit and copied it below:
Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.19044.1889]
(c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
C:\Windows\system32>bcdedit
Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {bootmgr}
device partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume1
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {globalsettings}
default {current}
resumeobject {e069dd04-15df-11ed-a9b3-a87a9fe95cf2}
displayorder {current}
toolsdisplayorder {memdiag}
timeout 30
Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {current}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Windows 10
locale en-US
inherit {bootloadersettings}
recoverysequence {e069dd06-15df-11ed-a9b3-a87a9fe95cf2}
displaymessageoverride Recovery
recoveryenabled Yes
allowedinmemorysettings 0x15000075
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {e069dd04-15df-11ed-a9b3-a87a9fe95cf2}
nx OptIn
bootmenupolicy Standard
C:\Windows\system32>
Saltgrass
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August 16th, 2022 09:00
I just looked up that Crucial drive and it appears to be an older version. If you haven't checked for a firmware upgrade for the drive, you might consider doing so.
Another possibility is the drive might not be completely compatible with Win 10.