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Am a Ubuntu user and quiet good with it, have been using it for like a year. I bought a Packard Bell EasyNote TE laptop , which had Windows 8.1 , I then installed Ubuntu 14.04 using the whole HDD, totally removing windows 8,. Everything was fine until recently , am an engineering student and I needed to install some few programs that are only run on windows.

So I downloaded windows 7 iso file made a bootable sb , but , when I tried booting from it , my laptop wouldn't realize that there is a usbs. but when I put a bootable usb with Ubuntu everything was fine , so I thought maybe I have to delete everything in my HDD, so I used my live bootable usb with Ubuntu ( under the try Ubuntu ). In there I then opened Gparted and deleted all partitions in my HDD and I didn't format it to NTFS or FAt , I just left it unformatted .

After that , when I restart my laptop I cant boot from a usb at all , its like my laptop[ doesn't recognize there is a usb inserted, either it has Ubuntu or Windows now all don't work , it shows a black screen saying Checking media , then go to another message which says " Default Boot Missing or Boot failed: inserts Recovery media and hit key "

Please help guys I need this Laptop since I am an engineering student, and my laptop has no cd drive.....

Fikile Ncube
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  • first of all no panic, there must be a reasonable explanation. Enter BIOS setup and load the defaults. – kenn Aug 03 '14 at 08:21
  • let me try that , coz am thinking maybe I deleted some important stuff in my HDD that helps in booting up from external medias.# if there is anything of that nature.... – Fikile Ncube Aug 03 '14 at 08:33
  • The BOIS info which is used by your laptop to manage your drives and so is saved on something called ROM. You can't delete it that simple. You have to flash it and you must know what you are doing so don't panic you are safe. I agree with Kenn, restore defaults and try again. With Windows 7, it's better you create a bootable from ISO using a tool. Use WinUSB. I will write how to use it in an answer below – OdinRW Aug 03 '14 at 08:44
  • Ok there is an answer already with a link. Try it! – OdinRW Aug 03 '14 at 08:45
  • Hey guys thanks all whi helped me in ny time of crisses , it turned iut the the problem , was the usb i was using to write the iso files ,.used my friends usb and it all worked well , thanks a lot hey – Fikile Ncube Aug 10 '14 at 06:24

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Since part of Ubuntu (specifically the piece of the boot loader that resides in the master boot record) still exists on the disk, I believe your computer's UEFI firmware ("BIOS") is still trying to boot from it.

Unlike when the disk is truly blank, your computer does not automatically boot from an attached USB device, even if the USB device is bootable. But you should still be able to boot from it, through your "BIOS" boot menu. Most computers' firmware has a boot menu that can be accessed by pressing or holding a particular key while starting up your computer. Another key will enter the firmware setup utility itself; the default boot order can be changed there.

Often F12 is the key to access the "BIOS" boot menu and F2 enters the "BIOS" setup. This is the case for most Dell computers, and some others with similar firmware. I don't know what current Packard Bell machines use. You can likely find this by searching, or just try all the common keys. The common ones are Escape, Delete, and the twelve function keys.

If you are able to select the USB flash drive to boot from but it still will not boot, then further troubleshooting will be required:

  • Can you write an Ubuntu desktop ISO to a USB flash drive and boot from that?
    (If so, the problem relates to the Windows ISO, flash drive, or the way it was written.)

  • How did you write the Windows ISO to the USB flash drive? Note that, unlike an Ubuntu ISO image, a Windows ISO image is not designed to work "out of the box" when written to a USB flash drive; additional data, to make the USB flash drive bootable, must be written.

    See How can I create a Windows bootable USB stick using Ubuntu?

Since you have no working operating system, if it turns out you also have no working bootable media, you may need to use a different computer to create such media.

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Eliah Kagan
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