Boot Device Not Found BSOD

[kwik6six]

Hello all.  I bought a new Pavilion desktop when my old one running Windows 7 would not allow an upgrade to Win10.  That old one lasted over 10 years and was ALWAYS on, so I thought, hmm-great quality, my new computer will be an HP.

I recently had a power outage and when I went to turn the computer back on (also ALWAYS on and on a high-end surge protection strip) I got the typical "There was a problem starting your computer" and I was in the obviously widely experienced Boot error loop.  After trying every option, including HP Restore and The HP check disk drive (both failed of course), now the only thing I get when I turn on the machine is the black screen with the small blue window Boot Device Not Found....which is how I went to F2 for the system Diagnostics and the hard drive scan failed.  Grrr.   Now I cannot even get a command prompt.  I've tried F9 for the boot menu but there are only two choices or ESC for default.  I have a system image on an external drive which I have turned on, but still does not show as an option.  I am now totally locked out of my computer.  I've only had this thing barely 2 years (as opposed to 10) so of course it is out of warranty and HP will not even allow me to use the chat feature on their support page and there is no way to email them to ask about a replacement Windows 10 if I have to replace the hard drive.  I cannot believe this complete about-face in the quality of an HP.  I am SO angry right now.

The only other option i have not tried yet is to remove the hard drive and make it an external drive and use my laptop to scan and fix disk errors.  Since it is out of warranty, what have I got to lose right?

I want to know...what was the point of making a system image on an external hard drive if I cannot even access it through the boot menu????

Does anybody have any helpful advice other than "buy a different computer from a different manufacturer"?  Really, 2 years of life for a new computer is NOT acceptable.

[WAWood]

@kwik6six 

Let's begin by talking about the system image.  I don't know HOW you made this, but if you used an HP utility, that was a mistake.  I only use a third-party utility known as Macrium Reflect (MR) and I have done what you are trying to do (restore a PC from an image on an external drive) more times than I care to count.  I know this does not fix your current problem, but consider switching to this in the future (it is free) so next time, you can do a restore.

As to the drive failure, yes, it is reasonable to expect a drive, especially in a desktop, to last 5 years or more -- but I have had drives last as little as three months!  And, since HP does not make the drives, it is not entirely their fault this happened.  That's why I have weekly backups on an external drive using MR -- so I can recover from this.

The reason you are getting no boot options with F9 is that your PC came with Secure Boot enabled by default.  You have to disable that in the UEFI settings before F9 will show any portable devices. This is not an HP limitation; it is a limitation of having UEFI mode set in a new PC.

[kwik6six]

Thanks WAWood.  The drive ended up being just fine, I used a windows boot utility that gave me an updated Windows 10.  Without a backup, I had to of course reset everything the way I want it and go through all the Windows Updates, but that was expected.  I at least have a flash drive with all my saved documents on it so it wasn't a total loss.

So I was able to use Windows Backup (and it automatically created a system image with it) and I was able to do it to a SD card, despite it saying it wasn't a safe location...it was all there when I finished.  However, I didn't want to eat up that much space on that card so I bought a 16 gig flash drive, but of course Windows in it's infinite wisdom🙄 won't let me save a system image on a flash drive.  Why it would on a SD card but not a flash drive is stupid, but that's Windows for you.

I am going to look into the Macrium and hopefully it will allow both a system  image and a backup on the flash drive.

Thanks again.