Hello, I just built a new system, and started it up for the first time today. The first time I started it, I got a message saying "Reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key". I tried pressing a key and just got the same message again. I reseated the RAM, cleared CMOS, and checked all connections on the board. Everything looked good. I started the machine up again, and got into BIOS for the first (and so far, only) time. I set the system clock and saved settings. When the system rebooted, I got the message "Reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key" again. Now, I suspect that if I clear CMOS again, I should get into BIOS again, but I'd rather not have to do that every time I want to start the system... The components in play: Motherboard - MSI 880GMA-E55 AM3 AMD 880G HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX CPU - AMD Phenom II X2 545 Callisto 3.0GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 80W Dual-Core Processor HDX545WFK2DGI Memory - CORSAIR XMS3 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 Desktop Memory Model CMX8GX3M2A1333C9 I do not have a hard drive attached yet. Does anyone have any ideas? This is the first system I have built myself. I could really use some help! Any replies are greatly appreciated. Thanks
Hi, The message you are getting when you power up the pc is coming up because there is no bootable media installed. Once you have a bootable hard drive, usb drive, or cd in the computer it should boot up. When you start the computer, the Bios checks an internal list for boot devices and tries to boot to each one in order. Once it finds a device it can boot to, it will pass control of the system over to the operating system on the boot device. What it sounds like is happening here is it is checking all the devices in the boot list and none of them are bootable. For example, it may check the cd drive first for a bootable cd, if nothing is there, then it may check for a usb, device, then an internal hard drive, then a network card. If none of them will boot, you will receive the error you have been getting. Getting that message is a good thing because it means your core components are working, video card, ram, cpu, etc because it is posting and then checking for bootable media
Thanks for your reply! That not only answered my question, but taught me quite a bit too. Thanks very much!
