Old Desktop Was Working Fine, Then 3F0 Error
I have an old HP PC from 2016 (I'm only using it because my laptop broke, that's a separate story). My family used to use it, but after they replaced it around 2020 it was wiped and sat unused for years. I started using it a few months ago, it's a bit slow but otherwise worked just fine. I mainly use it to browse the internet and edit word files, nothing more intense than Minecraft. It worked fine on Saturday. I closed everything and shut it down (not in sleep mode, shut down) when I was done. On Sunday, I started it and got the Boot Device not found 3F0 error. I followed the link presented: https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/ish_3053911-2842957-16 and tried the first step: reset the BIOS. That didn't work. I have not tried the second option, updating the bios, because to be honest I know very little about computers and am afraid of breaking things. Instead I tried option 3, performing a hard drive system test (the website says "symptoms test" but I have never seen an option for that). I've tried quick, fast, and extensive tests for just the hard drive and the whole computer, including letting it loop until it finds an error overnight. Nothing. I've tried reinstalling windows, nothing (I'm trying to reinstall windows again rn, just in case something went wrong), specially the reinstall that doesn't wipe all the files.
I have a backup from march on an external hard drive but it's incomplete. I think data is recoverable and I know a place I can go in town to get the PC checked out and recover the data (that's where I took my laptop after I broke it), but this PC was meant to be used temporarily after my laptop broke before I had the money to buy a new PC later this year, I don't want to spend a bunch of maintenance fees.
Does anyone have any idea what to do? I could try updating the bios, though as I said I'm a little uncertain; I've never messed with the BIOS before. I'd like to avoid opening the computer up to try and fiddle with it physically; despite being a (civil) engineer, replacing a fan was how I fried my laptop, so I don't want to do the same to this desktop.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.