PC start up even though power button not pressed / Hard drive not detected

[sampann]

Hi,

I have this problem for one week. I have the following error message when I start up my PC, a 6-year old HP pavilion desktop:

“Reboot and select proper device or insert boot media in selected boot drive and press a key”

Pressing any key gives me the same message. The night before the problem started, it was OK – however, I noticed that the shutdown process was much slower than usual.

I had done the following to try to resolve the problem but without success:

I had gone into the cmos setup / Boot Device priority and tried to set to boot from hard drive first but it indicates “HDD Group Boot Priority” as not installed.
 
In cmos setup, I pressed F5 key to Load Setup defaults, then F10 to save and exit cmos setup.
I took out the coin size battery from the motherboard, waited for 15 minutes and placed it back – then went into cmos again, press F5 again to Load Setup defaults. Repeated the process twice, this time waited for half an hour before putting the battery back – still cannot boot.

I took out the graphics card and put it back; unplugged the power cable from the hard drive and inserted it back; used another spare power connector to connect to the hard drive.
I pulled out (disconnect) the hard drive data cable (red color) from both the hard drive and motherboard and re-connect it back – still cannot boot.

And I realized something is very strange – now, every time I switched on the power on the wall plug, the PC start to power up immediately and the power button on the PC casing is lighted even though I did not press the casing’s power button. Normally, I need to press the casing’s power button to start up the PC after switching on the wall plug. It seems the power button (momentary switch) is latched on all the time..
When I press and hold the power button, the PC shutdown immediately and the power light goes off. But when I let go, it start to power up again (supposed to stay shut).
I’ve also tried pulling out the power button cable connector from the motherboard and reconnecting it back.

The PSU was changed about 3 years ago with one that carries a 5-year warranty and not a cheap one (AC Bel). I have only one hard drive.

I am not very familiar with PC hardware. Any help would be very much appreciated. Thank you.

[patio]

Is there a CD in the drive ? ?

[jason2074]

“Reboot and select proper device or insert boot media in selected boot drive and press a key”

 every time I switched on the power on the wall plug, the PC start to power up immediately

Try this suggestion with the hard drive connected.
1. Remove the mobo power connector
    and also all the optical drives data/power connectors.
2. Remove all RAM sticks and use only one alternately to check on the difference.
3. Remove the CMOS battery for a couple of minutes and let BIOS configure the hardware reset first.
4. Drained static electricity by pressing the power button for 20 seconds.
5. Double check everything is firmly connected or in place.

[sampann]

Thank you for the input, I have tried above steps listed - still same problem.

Sorry – it’s been a few days. Update:
I have replaced the power supply with a spare working one and still cannot boot. Then, I replaced the hard drive with another spare working one from a Dell computer and it boots. So it seemed the hard drive had gone bad. But still the PC boots without the power button pressed – I’ll replace this later. Now, with a different hard drive, my HP monitor’s speakers has no sound – this was solved later using device manager – update driver.

This problem is solved now but I am trying to find out how to transfer data from the bad hard drive to the new workable one. Thank you, everyone for your input.

[patio]

Slave Drive Tutorial...

Including pics and a vid clip.