Wipe Acer Aspire HDD. Won't boot USB, stuck in Ubuntu

Hi. I have an older Aspire E1-470P. It was getting old and slow so I installed Ubuntu. It worked for a while and then after a windows update it got stuck in update hell. Despite my best edfforts, I can only get into Ubuntu, and the PC won't boot from USB (Secure Boot on?)

I bit the bullet and bought a new PC.

I would like to wipe the hard drive and make it a dedicated Ubuntu machine, music and video server. However I cannot use Ubuntu Live USB to reinstall. I could feasibly wipe the Windows partitions with Gparted, but I don't think I can shift the Ubuntu partition to the left without booting from external media.

Is there a way to do this?

Thanks!

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JackE

If it was originally a factory Win8.1 (not Win8) or Win10 machine, you should be able to re-set the machine to a factory fresh state of Win8.1 or Win10 on the remaining Windows system partition via the ALT+F10 cold boot recovery method from a hidden ACER recovery partition. This would allow you to boot into Windows, shrink the Windows partition to a bare minimum to allow more space on the left side of the Linux system and swap partitions. You can then use either Windows partition management freeware or Linux open source partition tools that are more flexible/user friendly than Windows diskmgmt or Ubuntu GUI's gparted to move this freed up space around. Jack E/NJ

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

Pallama

Thanks. I tried a hard reset in Win10 and I believe the protected Windows partition is damaged. It runs and fails and restarts. Did that for 48 hours.

JackE

What's on the boot stick? In order to boot from it, you'll probably need to first set and save a BIOS supervisor password. Then re-enter the BIOS and disable secure boot and rearrange the boot order in the boot tab to the stick as first. Then make sure the F12 and D2D options are enabled in the BIOS main tab. Jack E/NJ

JordanB

https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-2-5-inches-SATA-Drive-Enclosure/dp/B01N5RLG2C

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeYxQmz-R9U

Pallama

I know how to take it apart. I’ve disconnected and reconnected drive and CMOS before thanks.

JackE

What's on the boot stick? In order to boot from it, you'll probably need to first set and save a BIOS supervisor password. Then re-enter the BIOS and disable secure boot and rearrange the boot order in the boot tab to the stick as first. Then make sure the F12 and D2D options are enabled in the BIOS main tab. Jack E/NJ

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