My laptop is saying no bootable device, hit any key.

Try accessing the BIOs of the computer. The following are the three keys most likely to have the Hp computer go into the startup bios.

Look to see if you hard drive is listed and is the boot device.

• Turn off computer.
  • Start computer continuously hit the F1 key
  • Start computer continuously hit F2 key
  • Start computer continuously hit esc

If the Hard drive is not listed then if you have the original disks for you computer try booting up with them. There may be other problems keeping the computer from finding the boot sector on your hard drive. The bios will give you some place to look. Do not use the option save you changes.

Did you made any harware changes to your laptop lately? I suggest you press f2 or F12 immediately at the startup. This will open up the BIOS configuration. Navigate to boot devie priority and locate your hard drive. Put it on the 1st priority and hit F10 to save changes and exit. Once the computer restarts the sustem will try to boot from the Hard drive..

Regards
David

First - re-seat the hard disk and reboot the computer. If the computer does not boot up then reboot and go into the BIOS configuration to see if the BIOS detects the hard drive. If it doesn't detect the hard drive then it could be faulty.
Then the hard drive needs to be replaced in the computer/laptop, Windows installed and the computer or laptop's device drivers plus your programs etc. to get a functioning computer/laptop again.

Take it to an IT specialist as I suspect the hard drive may be dead.

What has probably happened is, your hard drive is probably dead Basically its saying it doesn't see the drive so it can't boot. It could be either the drive or the motherboard.

For that you need to set first bootable device as cd/dvd rom in bios. When you power up the computer press F1 or F2 or del or ALt+F2 key to enter in bios then go to boot menu and set first boot device priority as cd/dvd rom then save settings and exit from bios then it boot with bootable disk. Let me know if you need further assistance. Thanks for using FixYa.

insert a bootable xp cd into the cd drive and hit enter continuosly...it ll ask to hit any key to continue from cd...hit any screen and follow the onscreen instructions...

if it doesnt works, try this....
u can log in to the setup by pressing del key or F2(depends upon make and model) and change the drive booting order...change the first booting device as CD/DVD and second booting device to HDD...
now it ll prompt you to hit any key to start from CD/DVD....
Make sure you have inserted a bootable XP CD in CD drive....Bootable XP CD's can be created only from another bootable XP cd by taking an image from that cd and writing it back to the cd...you can use NERO Copy disc option for this purpose...it ll create an iso image and you can use only this to write into the disc...

This sounds awful, but a friend just had the same problem - no bootable device. He had dropped it, hitting keyboard first. Now he thumped it on the opposite side and IT WORKED! Must have been a loose connector