Boot Device Not Found Error

[Cinderella60]

Get a black screen with "Boot Device Not Found" followed by "Please install an operating system on your hard disk" followed by "Hard Disk (3FO)" . When I run the Hard Drive Check I get the messages: SMART Check: NOT INSTALLED, and Short DST: NOT INSTALLED.

Those are the only messages I get. Does anyone have any suggestions? If the hard drive is dead is there any way to recover the data?

Thanks in advance.

[WAWood]

@Cinderella60 

There's no clear answer to that -- it depends entirely on the condition of the drive.

All you will be able to recover at best from the drive is personal data. You will not be able to recover settings, website information (including user accounts and passwords) or applications.

Your best bet for recovering data now is to do the following:
1) Remove the disk drive from the old PC. If this is a SATA hard drive or a SATA SSD, this is a simple thing to do. If this is an m.2 SSD, that could be either screwed to the motherboard or soldered to the motherboard. If the second, you would need to have a techician remove it for you, or you risk seriously damaging the PC doing it yourself.
2) If you have a desktop PC with a spare hard drive connector, then connect the old drive to that. If the old drive is a SATA drive, connect both the power cable and the data cable. (This adapter is illustrated below) If the old drive is an m.2 SSD, you will need a USB-to-mSATA cable.

3) Try to retrieve the files and folders you want to save from the old drive and copy them to the new PC.

If this does not work, then you need to do the following:
1) Download and install this utility on a working PC http://www.majorgeeks.com/news/story/recover_data_in_3_steps_with_minitool_power_data_recovery_free_...
2) Run the data recovery utility to see what can be retrieved from the old drive.

If that tool does not find what you need, an alternative is Recuva http://www.piriform.com/recuva

And, if that does not work well, the best tool out there is this one, but only the demo version is free https://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm