10 Ways to Fix Non System Disk or Disk Error on Laptops/PC - Qiling  

10 Ways to Fix Non System Disk or Disk Error on Laptops/PC


If the "Non system disk or disk error" error message is showing up because your Hard Disk Drive's boot files have become damaged or corrupt, removing all the non-bootable storage devices, checking on your HDD's IDE or SATA cable, or setting the right boot priority in BIOS/UEFI should fix the issue.

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Don't worry if you are having a "Non-System Disk or Disk" error on HP, Dell, Compaq, Acer, Lenovo, etc. laptops and computers. In the following, you will find 10 fixes for general troubleshooting and advanced troubleshooting of this issue. Pick up the best solution to remove this error and make your computer work again.

Workable Solutions Step-by-step Troubleshooting
5 General Troubleshooting Fixes

Fix 1. Remove non-bootable storage devices...Full steps

Fix 2. Check HDD IDE and SATA cable...Full steps

More Fixes...Full steps

5 Advanced Troubleshooting Fixes

Fix 5. Recover data from hard drive without OS...Full steps

Fix 6. Rebuild MBR to fix non-system disk error...Full steps

More Fixes...Full steps

About non-system disk or disk error

"What does it mean when your computer says non-system disk or disk error? It's an HP Compaq 6000 that runs trouble when I start it, a message comes up displaying as Non-system disk error or disks error, replace and strike any key when ready."

non system disk or disk error

For your information, the non-system disk or disk error message might appear when the computer BIOS cannot find a bootable operating system on any of the storage devices included in its boot path, or it fails to locate the boot disk. Similar error messages include boot device not found, operating system not found or missing operating system...

General troubleshooting for non-system disk or disk error

According to HP's help page, a very detailed guide is offered for HP notebook PCs to work out the "Non-system disk error" as well as "disk error" that appears on a black screen in Windows 10, 7 and Vista. In fact, the given suggestions are also applicable to other desktops and laptops, such as Dell, Compaq, Acer, Lenovo, etc.

In conclusion, you can try at first the four basic approaches, which usually helps fix the setup and stop error during Windows installation or startup.

Fix 1. Remove all the non-bootable storage devices

What storage drives are currently connected to your computer? Check and try to remove all the non-bootable storage devices, namely non-system drives, that make the computer have trouble to boot from, including a floppy disk or CD/DVD disc. After the safe ejection, try to turn off and on the computer and see if the error persists on.

Fix 2. Check on your HDD's IDE or SATA cable

Check on your HDD's IDE or SATA cable and make sure that the cable connecting the HDD to the motherboard is fastened securely and restart your computer.

Fix 3. Set the right boot priority in BIOS/UEFI

Access to your computer's BIOS/UEFI environment and make sure that the hard disk drive you're trying to boot from is in the right boot order settings, which should be at the very top of the boot order list. To change the boot order, you can do it like this:

Fix 4. Remove and reinstall the hard drive

A bad connection between the hard drive and the computer would also expose such unbootable issues, and most of the time it's because the hard drive was once dropped or jarred. To fix the connection problem, you must do it in a safe way by following the standard process offered here.

Fix 5. Use Windows repair services

The above solutions are not easy for ordinary users. If you want to solve the problem in a safe way, you can use manual Windows repair services. Qiling professional technical team can help you solve any system startup errors, including system failure, system blue screen, system black screen, and so on.

Consult with Qiling data recovery experts for one-on-one manual recovery service. We could offer the following services after FREE diagnosis:

  • Fix Windows boot issues, including BSOD
  • Fix Windows error and configure Windows environment
  • Restore the system when it fails to boot
  • Optimize Windows computer to make it run quickly

Advanced troubleshooting for non-system disk or disk error

Excluding the outside factors that caused the non-system disk or disk error, you have to accept the facts that something went wrong with the hard disk drive's boot files, which might become damaged or corrupted, and usually repairing the HDD's boot sector, master boot record (MBR) and boot configuration data (BCD) should take effect.

What's more, to protect data on a non-bootable computer, you're strongly suggested to take the right steps to fix the issue wisely.

First of all, download Qiling bootable media data recovery software to access and recover hard drive data without OS.

Later, download Qiling bootable partition manager to rebuild MBR.

Tip
Another healthy computer without boot problems and a CD/DVD disc/USB drive are required by both bootable software in order to create a bootable storage media. It's necessary to recover data from a computer or hard drive that won't boot, and manage partitions such as partition, format, or wipe partition without OS as well as fix hard drive corruption, bad sectors and rebuild MBR.

Fix 6. Access hard drive and recover data from the hard disk without OS

Step 1. Create a bootable disk

Prepare an empty USB. If you have important data on it, copy the data to another device. When you create a bootable disk, the data on the USB will be erased. Deep Data Recovery WinPE Edition will help you create a bootable disk.

Connect the USB drive to PC, launch Deep Data Recovery WinPE Edition. Select the USB drive and click "Create" to create a bootable disk.

Step 2. Boot from the bootable USB

Connect the bootable disk to PC that won't boot and change your computer boot sequence in BIOS. For most users, it works well when they restart their computer and press F2 at the same time to enter BIOS.

Set to boot the PC from "Removable Devices" (bootable USB disk) or "CD-ROM Drive" (bootable CD/DVD) beyond Hard Drive. Press "F10" to save and exit.

Select file types that you want to recover

Step 3. Recover data from a hard drive that won't boot

When you boot from the USB, you can run Deep Data Recovery from the WinPE bootable disk. Select the drive you want to scan to find all your lost files. 

Click "Scan" to start the scanning process.

select a location and click scan

Recover data from the computer or laptop. After the scan completed, you can preview all recoverable files, select the targeted files, and click the "Recover" button to restore your files. You'd better save all of the recovered data to another place to avoid data overwriting.

recover data from the computer

Fix 7. Fix non-system disk or disk error by rebuilding MBR

Download and install Qiling Partition Master Professional on a normal computer.

Step 1. Create a WinPE bootable disk

create a bootable disk

Step 2. Boot Qiling Partition Master Bootable USB

rebuild MBR

Step 3. Rebuild MBR

rebuild MBR

By rebuilding the corrupted or damaged MBR of the system hard drive, if by chance the error still occurs after booting up the computer, continue with the other doable methods to get rid of the error, including running diagnostics on your hard drive, check bad sectors and repair if found any, and replace the hard drive and reinstall Windows.

All those complementary solutions reply on the same essential tool Qiling Partition Master. A detailed tutorial on how to use the mentioned functions is given on the linked pages.

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