"Reboot and Select Proper Device" error on boot, please help!

Oct 31, 2015
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So some background for you guys:

I built this computer back in Dec 2014. My cousin helped me build it. It was running on Windows 7, but I upgraded to Windows 8 a few weeks after building it up.

Now, I had been using this computer every day with no problem, up to the point where my secondary drive, my HDD failed and I had to buy a new one. Luckily my SSD was fine, so I could still boot up/use Firefox, etc. I bought a 2TB Seagate HDD 3.5" SATA3. I powered down and unplugged everything from my computer, and replaced the hard drive.

After plugging everything back in, my HDMI would not get a signal from my integrated graphics or my GPU. Found that odd, so I plugged in my DVI plugs that came with the monitor into the GPU, and I got this error, "Reboot and Select Proper Device". My OS is on the SSD, which was fine prior to unplugging everything and replacing the new HDD.

Please help.
 
Solution
The "Reboot and Select Proper Device" message indicates a boot issue.... for a bad OS HDD this would be expected but with the OS on the SSD (in good condition), it's possible the Boot partition may be on the old HDD. If you partitioned the HDD (back in Dec 2014) in GPT partitions partition tables (not MBR), the Boot partition may have been created in the HDD so you may need to temporarily re-connect the HDD to move/copy the Boot partition to the new HDD... the Recovery partition may also need to be moved or copied. If the computer was booting after the HDD failed, even if the HDD is inaccessible, it should still help the computer boot.

If the computer boots but the old HDD has access issues and moving or copying the boot partition is...
The "Reboot and Select Proper Device" message indicates a boot issue.... for a bad OS HDD this would be expected but with the OS on the SSD (in good condition), it's possible the Boot partition may be on the old HDD. If you partitioned the HDD (back in Dec 2014) in GPT partitions partition tables (not MBR), the Boot partition may have been created in the HDD so you may need to temporarily re-connect the HDD to move/copy the Boot partition to the new HDD... the Recovery partition may also need to be moved or copied. If the computer was booting after the HDD failed, even if the HDD is inaccessible, it should still help the computer boot.

If the computer boots but the old HDD has access issues and moving or copying the boot partition is not possible, try running a Partition recovery program or a Data Recovery program. Read the sticky for such issues (second post). http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-1644496/lost-data-recovery.html
 
Solution