How to boot from CD drive on Aspire E1-531?

healer
healer Member Posts: 31 Die Hard WiFi Icon

I try to install from the CD drive.  However the CD prompt never appears though I can see the laptop acesss the CD.

 

I have enabled the F12 boot menu.  However when I select the Windows Boot Manager I don't see a list of devices for me to select to boot.

 

Then I changed the boot order having the CD on top and HDD the second.  However it still won't boot from the CD.

I tried to disable the secure boot but it didn't make any difference.  What is secure boot?

 

Please help!

Answers

  • IronFly
    IronFly ACE Posts: 18,413 Trailblazer

    what's the CD content?

     

    windows boot manager, only boot windows, doesn't list bootable devices.

    pressing F12 you must see all the available bootable devices.

    I'm not an Acer employee.
  • healer
    healer Member Posts: 31 Die Hard WiFi Icon

    When I press F12 I only get the Windows Boot Manager (ST500LT012-9W142) and nothing else.  Why?

    I need to boot from CD because I want to try to install Windows 7 on it.

     

    Capture.JPG

  • IronFly
    IronFly ACE Posts: 18,413 Trailblazer

     this is the normal behaviour when you have an UEFI BIOS.

     

    you need to set to BIOS to Legacy to boot from a windows 7 CD; please be aware that setting to Legacy you can have some issues like:

    touchpad skipping or bad behaviours

    graphic corruptions

    no windows 7 drivers for some hardware

     

    http://acer--uk.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/27044/~/changing-bios-mode-from-uefi-to-legacy

     

    i strongly suggest you to create an Acer recovery drive before installing windows 7, so you can revert to the original OS if something went wrong.

    I'm not an Acer employee.
  • healer
    healer Member Posts: 31 Die Hard WiFi Icon

    Since I have the laptop, I have never been able to boot from any CD or DVD.  I have even tried to boot from some Linux disc and it doesn't make any difference.

     

    I have just looked through the BIOS.  I couldn't see any option available about legacy.  Could you please tell me which page of BIOS it should be in.

     

    By the way, why I can't see any devices to choose to boot from when I have the Alt-F12 screen up.

     

    How to create Acer recovery drive?

     

     

  • healer
    healer Member Posts: 31 Die Hard WiFi Icon

    Thanks a lot!

     

    It did work.  I didn't know one has to use legacy mode in order to choose which device to boot from.

     

    By the way, how come I can't boot from the hard disk when I choose the hard disk on F12 screen while in legacy mode.

     

    While you are at it, could you please tell me how secure boot affects if I boot from other devices or boot from a non-Windows operating system?

     

    Also I have found the order of the F12 boot option menu doesn't correspond to what I set in the BIOS screen, in that the options available are 1. HDD, 2. ATAPI CDROM 3. Network Boot.  However what has been set in the BIOS is 1. HDD, 2. ATAPI CDROM, etc.

     

    Thanks!

  • IronFly
    IronFly ACE Posts: 18,413 Trailblazer

    nope.

    you don't need to switch to legacy to have a boot list, it works also under UEFI but...the bootable media must be UEFI compatible.

     

    windows 7 (despite what you can read on the web, doesn't always boot under UEFI) it's more boot "compatible" under legacy setting.

     

    you can't boot from HDD on legacy, because the OS was installed using UEFI and have a UEFI only boot manager (as windows 8.x and up if installed under UEFI settings)

     

    secure boot setting is for UEFI OSes that don't have a secure boot signature, so if it's missing you need to disable secure boot.

     

    BIOS boot list is editable, so you can set as primary boot device whatever on list, on F12 the boot option is a fixed list with the available bootable devices (hardware port priority - SATA 0 - SATA1 - USB - network - etc)

    I'm not an Acer employee.
  • healer
    healer Member Posts: 31 Die Hard WiFi Icon

    Thanks for all the useful information.

    When you say the BIOS boot list is editable and I did edit the the list but I don't see them when I press F12.  So when are we supposed to see the boot list that we edit?

  • IronFly
    IronFly ACE Posts: 18,413 Trailblazer

    on F12 (devices listed under hardware priority order, not your edited priority), in fact this will override the boot priority edited on F2 BIOS:

     

    UEFI - you will see only UEFI compatible bootable devices (no UEFI compatible devices = empty list)

    secure boot ON - only UEFI compatible with microsoft trustable EFI signature will boot

    secure boot OFF - all UEFI compatible will boot

     

    Legacy - you will see only devices with a partition marked as bootable

    I'm not an Acer employee.
  • healer
    healer Member Posts: 31 Die Hard WiFi Icon

    Thanks a lot for all the information.

    You are very kind.

    Have a good day!

  • IronFly
    IronFly ACE Posts: 18,413 Trailblazer

    you welcome, have a good day you too.

    I'm not an Acer employee.