i have a dell studio desktop, i have a message on the screen saying no boot device available, so consequently my computerwill not start any advice pleaseyou should make sure that your hard drive is plugged in, that the jumpers are on the proper pins, and that you have an active partition

sweet name, by the waythanks for the reply dworley, but i know not a jot about computers so i dont know what a partition is  have checked that everything is plugged in thoughWhat happened PRIOR to this and what version of Windows are you running ? ?
Not alot of details to go on...i just switched it on this morning and that was the message on screen. below the message it says  SATA0 INSTALLED SATA1 INSTALLED, SATA 2,3,4,5 NONE. i have windows vista on the computerDo you have anything plugged into the computer such as external disk drives, USB jump drives, or a CAMERA.  The computer may be trying to boot from the external device.no nothing at all dworley its a bit of a mystery
Did Vista come on the computer?  Or did you buy it separately?  And in either case do you the restore/install DVD or CD? Also, did your computer LOSE power abrubtly, like a power failure or anything?  Can you give the exact wording of the first line of the error?come ALREADY installed with vista  the disks i have say they are already intalled on the computerthe first line is; no boot device available
Does the hard drive SHOW up in BIOS?

What did you do just prior to the problem? Any new software or hardware?