No BIOS options- After system Crash

The V5-431 machine was a transitional model that came with either a traditional BIOS or a UEFI bootstrapper with a BIOS overlay. Do you know which one it has? If not, do you know if it originally had factory installed Win7 or Win8x?

Try this. Shut the machine completely off by pressing and holding the power button. Then press and hold the F2 key. Then while still holding the F2 key, press the power button to turn the machine back on. Post a photo of the BIOS Information & Main tabs if the BIOS menu appears

Jack E/NJ

Pressing and hold F2 does nothing sorry

It came with WIN7

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/qo/wv5t7e8dcqhu.jpeg

Was any BIOS update applied? If yes, which one? Jack E/NJ

JackE said:

Was any BIOS update applied? If yes, which one? Jack E/NJ

I don’t think any was done- the owner is t tech friendly- all I did was Install on the drive and after installing it back in the machine I was faced with this issue

He has a traditional BIOS if Win7 was factory-installed. It's menu might be accessible with the FN+F2 combo instead of F2 alone at boot time if there is a function key option turned on in the Main tab.

Nevertheless, if you tried to install Win10 made on another machine as a GPT partitioned boot HDD, the traditional BIOS won't see it as a boot drive. Accordingly, Win10 must be installed on an MBR partitioned HDD for the traditional BIOS to see it as a boot drive.

Jack E/NJ

Okay cool I’ll try reinstalling it back to windows 7 and see if it comes up that way- Win10 won’t install on MBR

Win10 will definitely install on an MBR boot dirive. The installation stick must be set up to boot in a traditional BIOS machine. You should prepare the Win10 USB installation stick for MBR or GPT drives using the Win10 iso and Rufus freeware. Jack E/NJ

I’ll let u know in a lil bit - when I get home I’ll try

Just tried with win10 and win 7 on mbr drive and still nothing- same error- drive is spinning as usual but pc not reading it

1. Remove the HDD
2. Reassemble computer
3. Turn on computer and see if you can gain access to BIOS by tapping F2...and then enable the F12 boot menu in BIOS settings and save/exit...if you can't access BIOS...that's ok, continue to next step.
4. On a different computer, create Lubuntu installation USB with rufus (download bionic beaver 64 bit iso) (or try zesty zapus)
use rufus settings: MBR, BIOS, FAT32

https://lubuntu.net/lubuntu-18-04-bionic-beaver-released/

https://rufus.ie/

5. Boot lubuntu USB and select "try before installing" (the BIOS will let USB boot because it has nothing else to boot---since you removed HDD)
6. If your computer works ok, you can reinstall HDD and install lubuntu or you could try Windows 10, but honestly I don't know if the laptop meets the minimum windows 10 requirements....I think your laptop might have an old celeron or maybe pentium...not sure.

Important Note: whenever you're trying to install an operating system, it can be helpful if the HDD/SSD is clean....no partitions, no initialization, no format, no nothing.
If you want to put a clean HDD in to the V5-431, you can get an enclosure and connect to USB port of your other computer and then use "diskpart clean" to wipe the HDD.

from an admin command prompt.....

diskpart
list disk
select disk x (x is the HDD that you want to wipe clean---be careful, don't select the wrong disk)
clean
exit

I’ll try that but usb so far hasn’t gotten me a prompt- F2 isn’t working so getting the boot options is out the door - swapping the drive in another machine works fine - I’ll try your way and get back to u

Yeah, you have to remove the HDD to regain access to BIOS. You should remove all drives. HDD and USB. Make sure there's not a CD in the cd player.

JordanB said:

Yeah, you have to remove the HDD to regain access to BIOS. You should remove all drives. HDD and USB. Make sure there's not a CD in the cd player.

Yeah that doesn’t work

With the HDD still removed, you can try a power reset by following the link below. And also try CMOS reset (remove CMOS battery for a couple hours). After that, I don't know how much time you want to invest on that laptop......it's pretty old. The steps I've given you wlll generally tell you if your computer is toast. Right now, it's not looking good.

https://acer--tst.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/13677/related/1/session/L2F2LzEvdGltZS8xNTg3NDM2MDAyL2dlbi8xNTg3NDM2MDAyL3NpZC9mVTNTTm1vYzJJNU5jJTdFJTdFTWs0Nm9Bd2xlUmclN0V1cEw3R3dIMHpKd29kdFladnl2NGprSEVhTFJqVkQlN0VrYURCTklXUHd5MXhPMnF4aFRGNHF1bGdReTNqb24za05wcEVPX05iTzJrTzgxYTVZT3VVdWZYajNVUGZWdyUyMSUyMQ%3D%3D

totally agree with u- I’ve tried the cmos battery and the g2102 and resulted in nothing- I’m actually thinking that the bios is just corrupted - I’m gonna try the Ubuntu and see if not I’m gonna hand it back to the owner and tell him buy a Lenovo

Ok, the reason why I was saying it was important to have the HDD removed is because I don't know what mode the BIOS is in. I don't know if it's in UEFI mode or if it's legacy mode. And I don't know if your HDD is MBR partition style or GPT partition style. Because sometimes when you put conflicting HDD in to conflicting BIOS mode, it will hang like that....and you can't get in to BIOS settings......so that was my reasoning for having you remove HDD and USB. That's why I was hinting at putting a clean HDD (uninitalized---neither MBR nor GPT)

You can also try holding the power button for 30 seconds. I'm out of ideas. Sorry.

well I've mounted it back up- wrapped the cable up, and said "that's all I can take".
From every F Key, draining the CMOS, replacing the HDD, using an external keyboard, installing a XP, Win7, Win10, and Ubuntu, the G2101 jumpers to using pen drives and DVDs/ CDs- I have said finally that I CANNOT do this.

Thanks for all the help guys, I really appreciate the inputs!

ok, if you ever get your second wind.....
When you reset the BIOS by removing the CMOS battery, it's possible that it reset it to UEFI mode.

If it's in UEFI mode, then you'd want to remove the HDD and create Lubuntu USB with rufus settings: GPT, UEFI (non CSM) FAT32. And then it should/might boot...and then you'd select "try without installing".....but unless you disable secure boot, I'm not sure if it will let you do that.

I would go with Lubuntu instead of Ubuntu because Lubuntu works better on older computers and is more likely to be compatible.