Swift™3 SF314-54 cannot Automatic Repair BIOS has no USB boot option except Windows Boot Manager

Hello

System : Acer® Swift™3 SF314-54 Intel® i5-8250U @ 1.6GHz SATA RST + Optane BIOS v1.14 .
Upon booting up , the system goes immediately into 'Preparing Automatic Repair'/'Diagnosing your PC' mode . Followed by : 'Automatic Repair couldn't repair your PC' .
'Exit and continue to Windows 10' : fails . // 'Use a device USB drive' , 'recovery DVD' , 'LAN' : all fail , since BIOS has no options other than : '1. WIndows Boot Mgr' . // None of the Troubleshoot advanced options work ('Reset this PC' , 'Startup Repair , 'Startup Settings' , 'Uninstall Updates' , 'UEFI firmware settings' , 'System Restore' : all fail) . //
Under the BIOS/BOOT menu, the only option is : '1. WIndows Boot Manager' (no USB , no LAN options !) .
If I could at least connect an external DVD drive or memory stick into any of the USB ports , I could perhaps get somewhere using a Windows® disc , and reformat from scratch . But BIOS has no option for a USB nor LAN bootup ! How can a BIOS not have these ? What to do ?
Any insight , suggestions would be greatly appreciated . Thank you

Accepted answers

billsey

With the BIOS versions that gray out Secure Boot by default you typically have to set a supervisor password to get access to that change. Don't forget to remove the password after you're done with everything else, because otherwise you'll be sure to lose it and never be able to access the BIOS again.

The external drives will show up in the boot menu if they are GPT with UEFI boot data on them. If they are just normal data drives they will not show up in that menu.

All comments

billsey

Windows Boot Manager is the normal UEFI boot environment. With the F12 boot menu enabled in the BIOS, and possibly Secure Boot disabled, you should see any UEFI bootable device listed when you enter the boot menu. Have you don't anything to upset the Optane/HDD combination that you know of? Typically those types of errors point to problems reading data from the disk, and the Optane card sits between you and the disk in order to cache commonly used data for faster access. What drives do you have on the system?

Dolphin_1

Good afternoon , 'Billsey' , and thank you for your reply .
Yes , F12 boot menu is enabled in BIOS . However 'Secure Boot' is greyed-out , and cannot be modified from its 'Standard' fixed state . Or is there a way to modify this ?

The only UEFI bootable devices that appear are : '1. WIndows Boot Manager' .

I connected an external DVD drive and a portable HDD to the USB 3.0 ports prior to booting up the notebook : however they remain undetected

.

I am unaware of having done anything to upset the Optane/HDD combination .
The only existing drive is HDD0 : HFS128G39TND-N210A (Hynix® 128GB MLC SATA , 6 Gbps M.2 SSD) . At least , it's the only drive that shows up at POST , there is no HDD1 drive listed) .
Thank you for any future replies

billsey

With the BIOS versions that gray out Secure Boot by default you typically have to set a supervisor password to get access to that change. Don't forget to remove the password after you're done with everything else, because otherwise you'll be sure to lose it and never be able to access the BIOS again.

The external drives will show up in the boot menu if they are GPT with UEFI boot data on them. If they are just normal data drives they will not show up in that menu.

Dolphin_1

Good morning , Billsey , and thank you for your patience in solving this ongoing mystery

. I have set passwords on all functions (user , HDDs , supervisor) , and disabled 'Secure Boot' . 'Secure Boot' is still gray , but has changed from 'Standard' to 'Custom' (in gray) .

The system still boots up directly into : 'Preparing Automatic Repair'/'Diagnosing your PC' mode . Followed by : 'Automatic Repair couldn't repair your PC' .
'Exit and continue to Windows 10' : fails . // 'Use a device USB drive' , 'recovery DVD' , 'LAN' : all fail , since BIOS has no options other than : '1. WIndows Boot Mgr' . // None of the Troubleshoot advanced options work ('Reset this PC' , 'Startup Repair , 'Startup Settings' , 'Uninstall Updates' , 'UEFI firmware settings' , 'System Restore' : all fail) . //
Under the BIOS/BOOT menu, the only option is : '1. WIndows Boot Manager' (no USB , no LAN options !) .
I cycled the BIOS SATA Mode from 'AHCI' to 'RST with Optane' (and back again) : to no avail .
The external DVD and SCSI portable drives are just normal drives , and continue to remain invisible anywhere on BIOS

.
This notebook is not quite two (2) years old and has rarely , if at all , been used . Was keeping it as a back-up in case my tower PCs BSOD on me... Surely , it can't be toast yet .
Thank you for any future replies

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Dolphin_1

Good afternoon , Billsey

.

I proceeded to install a fresh copy of Windows®10 via a UEFI-bootable USB . You were correct : only UEFI drives are detected during POST . This will undoubtedly create a 'Windows.old' folder , which wouldn't be my choice given the option , but I figured it was the only way to regain access to what seems an otherwise bricked notebook . Hopefully Acer® has all the necessary drivers DL-able from their support site for the Acer® Swift™3 SF314-54 Intel® i5-8250U . Time-consuming process ahead...

If you think of anything else , please advise .
Thank you for your insight and continued patience : you are made of science and knowledge !

billsey

So my guess is the first attempts to boot from the USB didn't have a UEFI bootable drive? That would explain why they didn't show up in the F12 menu... You should be on the right track now. We might have been able to repair the old install, but then that oftens ends up taking longer than just reinstalling.

Dolphin_1

Thank you for your reply , Billsey

. I agree : recovering the old install would perhaps have been messy . Just in case this happens again , and for my own knowledge , how could a fresh install have been averted , ie : repairing an old install ? Assuming your guess is and was correct , that only UEFI-bootable media should be used ?
Thank you , and have a great weekend !

billsey

The standard process is to have Windows do a system backup and create for you a restore boot drive. Repeat that each time you install a new app or make system level changes to your environment. Then setup file history so that your data has a current version backed up. If you need to recover, you boot from the restore drive and restore the system backup, then restore the file history.

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