HP laptop says "no bootable device" for weeks at a time and then fixes itself

Hello,
I am a college student. I have an HP pavillion laptop that I boughtin 2009- I do not currently know the exact product name because the IT center of my school has it. It crashed in 2010 and was found to have come with a faulty hard drive, and the hard drive was replaced. Ever since then, once in a while it will get a blue screen (the same blue screen I got the first time it crashed) and then whenever I try to turn the computer on it says "No Bootable Device." It will give me this error message for days or weeks at a time, and then all of a sudden it will start working again without having lost any information.
I have brought it to the IT center at my school twice. The first time they gave it back and said there was nothing wrong with it. This time, I was very insistent that there was something wrong and explained the problem in detail. I got a call today and they told me that they ran tests on the hard drive, and it's working fine, and they cant do anything else. They also said they could try reformatting it if I bring in the discs that it came with, but my dad told me that means I will lose everything on my hard drive.
I'm hoping there will be a simple solution that I can do whenever I get this error message but I'm guessing there won't be. I apologize in advance because I really don't know much about computers so I may have trouble understanding computer jargon..
Thanks!

Without knowing the product involved it is hard to help. You are correct there is likely no magic bullet if you are getting "no bootable device" other than shutting it down and trying to boot again. A 2009 laptop is now 4 years old and that is about the expected life of a laptop although this one seems to have been snakebit from the start.
Ask the IT Center exactly how they tested the hard drive. I am suspecting you have one of the ill-fated dv6000 or dv9000 series models which have heat related issues and high failure rates, but won't know until you provide the model number.

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I have been trying (several times now) to install Arch Linux. After the install, it just showed the message "No bootable device found".
I have already asked for a solution here, but until now no one could really help me.
I will paste my text from the other site here, to explain exactly my situation:
I've been trying to install Arch Linux. After the installation, it shows the BIOS screen and after that there just comes a message that says "No bootable device found".
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Partition Table: gpt
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Now I began installing the base system. After selecting the mirrors, I installed base and base-devel.
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By the way, I tried to install it on this computer.
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Last edited by brgr (2013-04-03 17:58:20)

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# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE
# It is automatically generated by grub-mkconfig using templates
# from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub
### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/00_header ###
insmod part_gpt
insmod part_msdos
if [ -s $prefix/grubenv ]; then
load_env
fi
set default="0"
if [ x"${feature_menuentry_id}" = xy ]; then
menuentry_id_option="--id"
else
menuentry_id_option=""
fi
export menuentry_id_option
if [ "${prev_saved_entry}" ]; then
set saved_entry="${prev_saved_entry}"
save_env saved_entry
set prev_saved_entry=
save_env prev_saved_entry
set boot_once=true
fi
function savedefault {
if [ -z "${boot_once}" ]; then
saved_entry="${chosen}"
save_env saved_entry
fi
function load_video {
if [ x$feature_all_video_module = xy ]; then
insmod all_video
else
insmod efi_gop
insmod efi_uga
insmod ieee1275_fb
insmod vbe
insmod vga
insmod video_bochs
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font=unicode
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insmod ext2
set root='hd0,gpt3'
if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
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fi
font="/usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2"
fi
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set gfxmode=auto
load_video
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set lang=en_US
insmod gettext
fi
terminal_input console
terminal_output gfxterm
set timeout=5
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menuentry 'Arch GNU/Linux, with Linux core repo kernel' --class arch --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'g$
load_video
set gfxpayload=keep
insmod gzio
insmod part_gpt
insmod ext2
set root='hd0,gpt2'
if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt2 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt2 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt2 4ada76a3-b73a$
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search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 4ada76a3-b73a-4ddd-94e2-e723e15cdc84
fi
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linux /vmlinuz-linux root=UUID=f8d04422-e0a0-486e-abfd-43fa63f5e10e ro quiet
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initrd /initramfs-linux.img
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load_video
set gfxpayload=keep
insmod gzio
insmod part_gpt
insmod ext2
set root='hd0,gpt2'
if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt2 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt2 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt2 4ada76a3-b73a$
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search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 4ada76a3-b73a-4ddd-94e2-e723e15cdc84
fi
echo 'Loading Linux core repo kernel ...'
linux /vmlinuz-linux root=UUID=f8d04422-e0a0-486e-abfd-43fa63f5e10e ro quiet
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### END /etc/grub.d/20_linux_xen ###
### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ###
### END /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ###
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and here the /etc/fstab:
# /etc/fstab: static file system information
# <file system> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
# /dev/sda3 LABEL=system
UUID=f8d04422-e0a0-486e-abfd-43fa63f5e10e /mnt ext4 rw,relatime,data=ordered 0 1
# /dev/sda2 LABEL=boot
UUID=4ada76a3-b73a-4ddd-94e2-e723e15cdc84 /boot ext2 rw,relatime 0 2
# /dev/sda5 LABEL=userdata
UUID=964b46b9-8b33-4978-bcef-5c9e41ade8c6 /home ext4 rw,relatime,data=ordered 0 2
# /dev/sda4 LABEL=swap
UUID=276da045-ffba-4b20-9230-2540898541b1 none swap defaults 0 0
# /dev/sda3 LABEL=system
UUID=f8d04422-e0a0-486e-abfd-43fa63f5e10e /mnt ext4 rw,relatime,data=ordered 0 1
# /dev/sda3 LABEL=system
UUID=f8d04422-e0a0-486e-abfd-43fa63f5e10e / ext4 rw,relatime,data=ordered 0 1
# UUID=f8d04422-e0a0-486e-abfd-43fa63f5e10e LABEL=system
/dev/sda3 /mnt ext4 rw,relatime,data=ordered 0 1
# UUID=4ada76a3-b73a-4ddd-94e2-e723e15cdc84 LABEL=boot
/dev/sda2 /boot ext2 rw,relatime 0 2
# UUID=964b46b9-8b33-4978-bcef-5c9e41ade8c6 LABEL=userdata
/dev/sda5 /home ext4 rw,relatime,data=ordered 0 2
# UUID=276da045-ffba-4b20-9230-2540898541b1 LABEL=swap
/dev/sda4 none swap defaults 0 0
@Scimmia: I will try this out tomorrow, I don't have enough time to do it now.

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                                                                                                        I
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I know i may be asking a question that many have before, but as a bit of a technical novice I wanted a clear-cut answer to my specific circumstances. Your help is greatly appreciated.
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Kind Regards
Joe

The diagram was supposed to look more like this......
Internet ---------TIME CAPSULE(containing all files) --------WD 2T Harddrive
                                            I
     I                           I                          I                            I                                   I
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Sorry!
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HP laptop says "no bootable device" for weeks at a time and then fixes itself

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