How to recover a Windows 7 only MacBook Pro 2010 with no bootable device?

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After trying to boot my MacBook Pro 2010, I get the following message:

NO BOOTABLE DEVICE -- INSERT BOOT DISK AND PRESS ANY KEY
Only Windows 7 Home Premium but no Mac OS X is installed.

I tried a lot of tutorials on youtube but none helped me out.
 
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It sounds like the hard drive has crashed. Replace the drive and restore your backup. You do have a backup, right?
 
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MacInWin

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Welcome to the forum!
Only Windows 7 Home Premium but no Mac OS X is installed.
That statement confused me. Have you wiped out OS X and the machine only have Win7 installed, or is it that you can boot Win7 but not OS X? If the former, you need to check with MS because essentially you have a Windows machine with an Apple logo. If the latter, you may have something wrong with the OS X partition if it boots Windows but not OS X. And Lifeisabeach still can be right, you may have a flaw in the HD where the OS X partition is located but not in the windows partition if you can boot to Windows. Or if it won't boot at all, it's most likely a dead HD as Nick said.
 
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Welcome to the forum!
That statement confused me. Have you wiped out OS X and the machine only have Win7 installed, or is it that you can boot Win7 but not OS X? If the former, you need to check with MS because essentially you have a Windows machine with an Apple logo. If the latter, you may have something wrong with the OS X partition if it boots Windows but not OS X. And Lifeisabeach still can be right, you may have a flaw in the HD where the OS X partition is located but not in the windows partition if you can boot to Windows. Or if it won't boot at all, it's most likely a dead HD as Nick said.

I had windows 7 but not any os x !
 
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MacInWin

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LIAB, all those hits were for OS X, but kastro says:
I had windows 7 but not any os x !
Again, that statement is not crystal clear, but assuming that the drive was Windows ONLY, no OS X installed at all, then nothing from the OS X perspective is useful. Kastro basically has, as I said, a Windows machine with an Apple label. The only Apple part of the problem is hardware. So kastro needs to find out why that message appears in Windows, not OS X or Bootcamp or any other Apple product. I just did a quick search an got 172,000 hits.

NO BOOTABLE DEVICE -- INSERT BOOT DISK AND PRESS ANY KEY - Bing
 

bobtomay

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Sounds like a dead drive to me also.
 
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LIAB, all those hits were for OS X, but kastro says: Again, that statement is not crystal clear, but assuming that the drive was Windows ONLY, no OS X installed at all, then nothing from the OS X perspective is useful. Kastro basically has, as I said, a Windows machine with an Apple label. The only Apple part of the problem is hardware. So kastro needs to find out why that message appears in Windows, not OS X or Bootcamp or any other Apple product. I just did a quick search an got 172,000 hits.

NO BOOTABLE DEVICE -- INSERT BOOT DISK AND PRESS ANY KEY - Bing

I didn't have time to screen the hits, but I just breezed over them and many do apply to Windows installed via Boot Camp. And installing via Boot Camp is in fact how you get Windows to install. The fact that he doesn't have OS X installed is pretty much irrelevant. And the message couldn't be appearing in Windows if there is no "bootable volume" so it must be the hardware kicking it via the EFI. Or something to that effect.

Here's one of the first hits worth reading:
"iMac error: "No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key" | MacRumors Forums

Kastro, reboot your Mac and as soon as you hear the startup chime, press and hold the OPTION key and keep holding it. You should get a list of bootable volumes if the drive is working and if the Windows partition isn't damaged. Tell us what you see.

Also take note of a comment from that last link. One person got the message when he had something plugged into a USB port. So unplug everything before rebooting.
 
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MacInWin

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And installing via Boot Camp is in fact how you get Windows to install.
Not necessarily. You can just wipe out the drive, insert a Windows install disk and just install Windows as the one and only operating system. And if you do that, you don't get any of the boot options you are referring to. Here is a link to how to install Windows without bootcamp: (Note that the process is for Vista, but has been reliably reported to work for Win7 as well.) Link

There are other options to install Windows without BootCamp here -> Link
 
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Not necessarily. You can just wipe out the drive, insert a Windows install disk and just install Windows as the one and only operating system. And if you do that, you don't get any of the boot options you are referring to. Here is a link to how to install Windows without bootcamp: (Note that the process is for Vista, but has been reliably reported to work for Win7 as well.) Link

There are other options to install Windows without BootCamp here -> Link

Ah... good to know. I guess it was Windows XP that required install via Boot Camp because it couldn't recognize EFI-based hardware (BIOS-only)?
 
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MacInWin

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Don't know. And we don't know how the OP got to a Windows-only installation, so we don't know how to help him. But I'm betting on a HD failure, impending or done. But it's definitely either hardware or Windows.
 

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