Cannot access BIOS on Aspire M

Greetings, Acer community.

I'm a high school junior with a year+ old Acer computer that has broken down twice and is now out of warranty. I purchased this computer with my own money.

My Aspire M laptop will not boot due to the 'boot configuration file being invalid', at least, this is what the 'Recovery' blue screen states. The blue screen offeres to 'Press Esc for UEFI Firmware settings, but is not responsive. I've tried F2, F8, F10, Alt+F10, F12, Space Bar, Delete and Break to try to activate the BIOS interface, all equally unsuccessful.

I followed the instructions to purchase recovery tools from Acer, but without being able to access the BIOS to set the boot order, I've just sunk another $25 into a laptop that doesn't work.

The cost of service exceeds the cost of the laptop, so I'm inclined to continue trying to repair it myself. If it cant' be repaired, there is little chance I'll purchase a new Acer to replace it as this has been a very frustrating experience.

Please help.

-Lauren

Accepted answers

laringman

Update!

Well, first I removed the HDD to try to F2-interrupt the Boot sequence to get to the BIOS. No such luck. So, it was off on a search for the CMOS battery, which I was thinking might help interrupt whatever control W8 (or something else) was having on my boot sequence and as such, was not allowing me to get to the BIOS screens.

AND, while poking around on the message boards, YouTube and the user-manual I found on the ACER site, I stumbled across the 'battery reset' port on the bottom of the case - one that could be used to completely diconnect all power from teh system. Sounded like a promising option. So, before tinkering with the CMOS, I pressed this battery reset button for 4 seconds, using a small paper-clip, and VOILA!, after a power cycle, the bios screens were once again accessible usign F2, etc. (Clearly, the keyboard is wokring fine.)

I returned to the Alt+F10 screens to attempt to *repair* the system using the onboard recovery features, but NONE of the options would work, they all complained of a locked hard drive, no bootable device, missing boot sector files or corruption. Partial, complete repair, troubleshooting, none of it would work.

So, using the system disks I had already purchased, I sought out to reload the system entirely. After changing the boot sequence, placing the CD/DVD drive atop the list, I inserted the system disk, rebooted and was on my way.

I worked my way through the system, three recovery and language disks and am now waiting for the freshly loaded operatign system to finish installing all the hardware and software components. I'm certain this will solve my problem.

I just wish I would have realized this silly little battery disconnect option existed a few weeks ago. Persistence pays off, I guess.

-Lauren

All comments

philetus

Do you have the Recovery cds from Acer? If you have Windows 8, hole down the shift key and press power and keep holding the shift key.If you do have the Recovery cds, you will have to remove all partitions from the HDD before the Recovery cd will work.

Download and burn to cd a windows live cd and try to boot it.When it loads it will as Install OR Try? You want Try.Find Gparted and open it. It will show the partitions. Right click on them and delete. Leave drive with no partitions. Shut down, load Recovery Disk 1 and restart.

laringman

Thank you for your generous assistance.

Yes, I bought the recovery CD/DVD package from Acer and the system has Windows 8 installed.

Pressing and holding the Shift button down (right or left or both) has no affect on the current state; after the splash screen, the laptop displays the "Recovery - Your PC needs to be repaired..." screen.

I need to access to BIOS screens to change the boot device order, but it appears that W8 already has control of the laptop before I can give the BIOS access command. Or, an alternate way of interrupting W8's control of the system at boot.

-Lauren

IronFly

if your Aspire M has an HDD bay, take off the HDD then boot to BIOS pressing F2, change boot priority to CD/DVD or USB as first device, then save and exit.

put back the HDD and try to boot from DVD or USB.

laringman

Yes, it does have a HDD bay and when the HDD is disconnected, the system reports "No boot disk', press any key". No keys are responsive to the error dialog. F2 (and all the other BIOS access key functions) does not open the BIOS screen.

Quite a pickle, huh? It's as if the keyboard is dead; it was working properly before this problem presented itself.

I think I'm going to go try the hard disk removal, power-on F2 option again.

-Lauren

IronFly

and if you put a bootable USB pen or DVD, without HDD?

just to check if keyboard is really working.

laringman

Update!

Well, first I removed the HDD to try to F2-interrupt the Boot sequence to get to the BIOS. No such luck. So, it was off on a search for the CMOS battery, which I was thinking might help interrupt whatever control W8 (or something else) was having on my boot sequence and as such, was not allowing me to get to the BIOS screens.

AND, while poking around on the message boards, YouTube and the user-manual I found on the ACER site, I stumbled across the 'battery reset' port on the bottom of the case - one that could be used to completely diconnect all power from teh system. Sounded like a promising option. So, before tinkering with the CMOS, I pressed this battery reset button for 4 seconds, using a small paper-clip, and VOILA!, after a power cycle, the bios screens were once again accessible usign F2, etc. (Clearly, the keyboard is wokring fine.)

I returned to the Alt+F10 screens to attempt to *repair* the system using the onboard recovery features, but NONE of the options would work, they all complained of a locked hard drive, no bootable device, missing boot sector files or corruption. Partial, complete repair, troubleshooting, none of it would work.

So, using the system disks I had already purchased, I sought out to reload the system entirely. After changing the boot sequence, placing the CD/DVD drive atop the list, I inserted the system disk, rebooted and was on my way.

I worked my way through the system, three recovery and language disks and am now waiting for the freshly loaded operatign system to finish installing all the hardware and software components. I'm certain this will solve my problem.

I just wish I would have realized this silly little battery disconnect option existed a few weeks ago. Persistence pays off, I guess.

-Lauren

IronFly

Good to hear!

Phreakwars

Next time, just do this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7o5a5v5HX4

laringman

Yeah, like that didn't work when I was in the state I was in. Ultimately, re-setting the battery re-enabled BIOS screen access. After that, I could use the F2.

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