No operating system

[madeira20]

Please can anyone help? It's been 3 days since my laptop died while I was away from home. I have exhausted all self-help options and can't phone an HP rep at the weekend. Furthermore, it seems you can't even create a case online unless you're a business customer.While I was away  my 3 mth- old laptop shut down immediately  after a blue screen appeared telling me to wait, it was trying to find/identify the error. The laptop had been OK before that.

Pressing the power button results in no response. The power lights are on, the battery light blinks. There is no noise and the screen remains black.

I tried the virtual agent and went through problem-solving steps and explored other hp solution pages. I cannot do a hard reset-nothing happens.

I tried restoring Bios with key press combination Windows+B and got message 'Bios Recovery Files not found, plug BIOS recovery usb flash drive' Then I tried Bios Recovery with a USB -the laptop makes a noise like it's powering on for 5 secs then stops, screen remains black and there is no noise. I tried starting with Windows Key+V and got message 'CMOS check sum is invalid. The CMOS will be reset to default configuration and will be rebooted...CMOS Reset (502) Enter-Reboot the system' When I press enter nothing happens.

I downloaded the Hardware diagnostic tool to usb and tried that-no response.However, I left the laptop on and about 1hr later saw there was a response 'Boot device not found. Please install an operating system on your hard disk. Hard disk (3F0) F2 Startup diagnostics'

[madeira20]

For anyone with the same issues here is an update:

I got through quickly to phone support at 8am and the agent ran me through various start/key combinations (I had done all these things and more tests myself) and said I needed to return the laptop.Then  I told him I had done a harware diagnostics test (as he hadn't suggested this) and got the message that  there was no operating system. He said if that was the case all my data would have been lost and said it may have been due to a windows update. I had not recently backed up my files and my one drive shows nothing saved so this is terrible news. I realise that I should have checked one drive was properly set up before this and also backed up files externally every time I used the laptop, but I am still very unhappy with HP- the much- publicised windows update which affects HP computers is partly to blame, but why hasn't HP built in any safeguards/ why do HP computers have this vulnerability?? (I had a Samsung for 5 years and  then an Asus for 7 years, without anything dramatic happening).  I cannot trust  HP to be safe again. I will now buy an external hard drive to save my files to and never keep any on the laptop again.

Meanwhile, am back to using my old Asus and now have to wait for the laptop's return and then start the process of setting everything up again...

[WAWood]

@madeira20 

Just a few comments to clarify things.

First, MS no longer provided any ability to disallow specific Windows Updates, as they did with earlier versions of Windows; so there is NOTHING that HP could have done to prevent this WU from being installed.  

Second, this is not the first time that a Windows Update has trashed personal files -- it has happened before.  If you want to BLAME someone about this, at least be decent and blame the company that actually trashed your files -- Microsoft!

Third, we used to have a saying when I worked in IT -- If it isn't worth backing up, it isn't worth saving!  USB  sticks of considerable size are available nowadays for nearly nothing.  If you want to prevent file loss, the ONLY way to do this is through regular backups -- as your drive, like ALL drives, is going to eventually FAIL.

[madeira20]

Thank you for clarifying the situation- I now understand that my comments were unfair and that Hp couldn't have done anything to prevent this.

And yes, I have learnt my lesson re frequent backing up!