New hard drive in my Aspire 771G and now I cannot access BIOS.

kingsman1288
kingsman1288 Member Posts: 5 New User
edited March 2023 in 2014 Archives

Hello,

 

I recently was given a gently used Aspire 771G and was told all I needed to do was install a new hard drive and my own copy of Windows. I went out and bought a new 500GB HD and a new copy of Windows 7. When I try to boot up the laptop to get into BIOS to change the boot settings, I receive the message that there is no bootable device detected. When I attempt to boot up the laptop with the Windows boot disk in the DVD tray, I am able to select the DVD drive to boot from. After selecting the DVD drive, I then recieve an error stating that "atapi dvd blocked by current security". I can't change the security settings in BIOS because I am unable to even access BIOS in the first place. What can I do to resolve this problem? Any help anyone out there can provide will be greatly appreciated!

Answers

  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,330 Trailblazer

    Do you know if this 771G originally had factory-installed Win8 or Win8.1 ? If so, you may have a UEFI bios that must be re-set to legacy mode for a Win7 installation.

     

    Jack E/NJ

    Jack E/NJ

  • kingsman1288
    kingsman1288 Member Posts: 5 New User

    The laptop originally came with Windows 8 pre-installed. Through some extensive google digging, I've come to the conclusion that it probably is something to do with the legacy setting in BIOS. (although my conclusion could be totally wrong, as I'm not very tech savvy) I can't even manage to get into the BIOS menu for some reason though. I also popped the hard drive into another computer just to make sure it wasn't a faulty hard drive and the other computer recognized the hard drive right away and was also able to get me into BIOS as well.

  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,330 Trailblazer

    You seem to have the newer UEFI bios. I'm gonna suggest that possibly the easiest way out of your dilemma is to purchase the Acer erecovery media specific to your machine at nominal cost. From there, you can decide whether or not to stay with the original Win8.x pre-installation, or access the UEFI bios from Win8 and change it to legacy mode. Then install Win7. IMO, you may be better off staying with Win8.x with this particular machine.

     

    Jack E/NJ  

    Jack E/NJ

  • kingsman1288
    kingsman1288 Member Posts: 5 New User

    I had no idea that option even exsisted. I will have to give it a try and see if that will work. Any particular reason you reccommend sticking with Windows 8.x?

  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,330 Trailblazer

    Working with a newer UEFI bios can sometimes be tricky especially if you want to re-set it to legacy mode to install Win7. It is for this reason you may want to stick with the Windows version the machine originally came factory-equipped with. If you aren't happy with the Win8x interface shell vs Win7, there are free Win7 shell emulators that can give Win8x the look and feel of the familiar Win7 desktop 

     

    Jack E/NJ     

    Jack E/NJ

  • kingsman1288
    kingsman1288 Member Posts: 5 New User
    Got it. Will the fact that the original hard drive is not in the computer anymore affect the reset by the recovery? Also, the recovery media for my model is only available on CD. Will I still be able to use it since I currently cannot boot from CD drive due to the security settings being locked?
  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,330 Trailblazer

    The erecovery disks specific to your machine should be able to handle this issue. If there is a problem, the erecovery disk images can be written to a bootable flash drive using a free program such as the Rufus usb tool. 

     

    Jack E/NJ

    Jack E/NJ

  • kingsman1288
    kingsman1288 Member Posts: 5 New User

    Thank you! I will be trying this out and let you know if it works.