Major boot issues

Started by Incineroar May 4th, 2014 10:32 PM
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  • 19 replies

Dter ic

Fire Emblem....HEROES

Age 26
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(Un)united Kingdom
Seen December 15th, 2018
Posted July 9th, 2018
741 posts
10.7 Years
Obvious question but why haven't you tried going back into the BIOS settings and changing it back to UEFI mode again?

Assuming you're trying to dual boot win8 and ubuntu you can follow the initial instructions here

Legendary Silke

You like dragons?

Seen December 23rd, 2021
Posted April 22nd, 2020
5,925 posts
12.5 Years
Because I can't. My Acer doesn't have that option unless I can already boot into Windows 8. I read that holding down a ton of keys can force an error that will boot to the BIOS, so I'll give that a shot and see if it works.

Edit: Nope. So here's what happens:

Power on -> Acer logo (Button presses seem to fail here) -> PCIe boot screen - (If aborted or fails) > "Operating System Not Found" error.

This is, literally, the entire boot process. I might attach a USB keyboard and see if that changes anything, but I doubt it.

Edit 2: USB Keyboard is a no-go.
Check your manual. Some UEFI-based systems only enter system menus when a key is held as you press the power button!

Tsutarja

Age 28
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13.2 Years
I've checked online manuals for my model, and while most of them say to use either F2, F8, or F12, none of them work.
And you've tried doing them constantly as well, correct? If it's not working, then somewhere secure boot somewhere must have been enabled.

Legendary Silke

You like dragons?

Seen December 23rd, 2021
Posted April 22nd, 2020
5,925 posts
12.5 Years
And you've tried doing them constantly as well, correct? If it's not working, then somewhere secure boot somewhere must have been enabled.
Secure Boot doesn't disable access to UEFI menus.

Thing is, when I set it to legacy BIOS, that was disabled. Acer's support is suggesting that I boot a Windows environment and run the installer for my BIOS and reset it that way.
Hmm...

Did your computer come with Windows 8 or newer pre-installed? If yes, keep in mind that the factory configuration expects UEFI with Secure Boot. Either way, if all else fails, send it in for servicing, as the recovery partition is likely made inaccessible somehow.

Tsutarja

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Secure Boot doesn't disable access to UEFI menus.
I know it doesn't when you restart from Windows. But on my laptop, it's definitely disabled when I have Secure Boot enabled and try to access it at boot.

Legendary Silke

You like dragons?

Seen December 23rd, 2021
Posted April 22nd, 2020
5,925 posts
12.5 Years
I know it doesn't when you restart from Windows. But on my laptop, it's definitely disabled when I have Secure Boot enabled and try to access it at boot.
Check your laptop's manual. Not all systems are the same; some systems still allow such a key press, but you'd have to hold the key before the system is powered on.

Tsutarja

Age 28
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Check your laptop's manual. Not all systems are the same; some systems still allow such a key press, but you'd have to hold the key before the system is powered on.
I guess my laptop is different then, because I've also tried holding it down, and still no luck like that with secure boot enabled.

Legendary Silke

You like dragons?

Seen December 23rd, 2021
Posted April 22nd, 2020
5,925 posts
12.5 Years
I guess my laptop is different then, because I've also tried holding it down, and still no luck like that with secure boot enabled.
Do note that if Fast Boot is enabled, this probably won't work, as it's not a full shutdown, but a state similar to hibernation.

Tsutarja

Age 28
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Do note that if Fast Boot is enabled, this probably won't work, as it's not a full shutdown, but a state similar to hibernation.
Nope, Fast Boot is not set at all on mine. It's set to normal.

Legendary Silke

You like dragons?

Seen December 23rd, 2021
Posted April 22nd, 2020
5,925 posts
12.5 Years
Nope, Fast Boot is not set at all on mine. It's set to normal.
Windows' own implementation of Fast Startup (whoops) isn't the same as the one you'd get in UEFI settings; in fact, the former can be enabled on even BIOS-based systems.

Dter ic

Fire Emblem....HEROES

Age 26
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Posted July 9th, 2018
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10.7 Years
It did come preinstalled, so I'm going to try a BIOS flash, and if that fails, I'll send it in after making a complete hard disk backup.
I was going to suggest making a bootable win8 and then accessing the UFEFI settings from that but it seems like a BIOS flash might fix it already.

twocows

The not-so-black cat of ill omen

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Posted April 30th, 2021
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You probably shouldn't have gone into legacy boot mode to begin with, but UEFI is a stupid mess of a solution seeking a problem. That said, nearly every modern OS has a way you can boot it from UEFI, including GNU/Linux-based systems. You should have worked with that first. More info here.

As for what to do from here, I don't know what to tell you. UEFI is too new for my expertise, so my old advice, like loading a BartPE environment or something, probably won't work now. If there's a Win8 equivalent of BartPE, then maybe try that.

This whole UEFI thing is symptomatic of a larger problem. We're so up our rear ends about finding "new" and "innovative" stuff that we start throwing out stuff that works well, maybe with a few fixable problems, in favor of the new shiny just because it's the new shiny. Like systemd, for example. That's not to say there aren't software projects that NEED to be made obsolete, like X, but all this going to new stuff just for the sake of going to new stuff is absurd. There's nothing BIOS was lacking other than a shiny, mouse-enabled UI, and that's something that could have been done without introducing the whole new fail that is UEFI, maybe by extending BIOS slightly. And don't get me started on secure boot. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
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