Computer Updated and now Black Screen

[EaganA003]

Hello!

I'm hoping you all can help! We bought this laptop in 2017 but it's have very little use until March when distance learning became a thing. We don't use it for much other than email, distance learning, and the occasional word document.

On Thursday evening last week (5/14), I selected "update and shut down" thinking nothing of it. On Friday (5/15), I went to turn it on for my son's zoom meeting and it opened to a black screen saying the boot device was not found and there was no hard drive. I've tried everything the virtual assistant suggested and a few things youtube suggested and nothing worked. On Monday (5/18), it magically started like normal and appeared to be "updating" like it was supposed to be doing on the previous Thursday. It finished updating and then ran normally for the rest of Monday. I turned it off thinking everything was fine. And when I went to turn it back on on Tuesday morning, the black screen came back with the same "boot device not found" message again. 

Is this computer ruined? Should I just buy a new one?

Thank you so much for your help! I really appreciate it.

This nontech, single mom, full time working, tired, very tired, mom really, really thanks you a lot.

April

[Echo_Lake]

@EaganA003

Thank you for posting on HP Support Community.

Don't worry as I'll be glad to help, I have a few troubleshooting steps we could try to fix the issue:  

• Step 1: Perform a hard reset (do not skip any troubleshooting steps if you feel steps are repeating) 
• Step 2: Restore BIOS default settings
• Step 3: Test the hard drive using HP PC Hardware Diagnostics
• Step 4: Reseat the hard drive
• Step 5: Perform an HP System Recovery
• Click here: https://support.hp.com/in-en/document/c01443463 to complete the troubleshooting steps. 

Hope this helps! Keep me posted for further assistance.
Please click “Accept as Solution” if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution.