Acer ES1-132: Unable to run any OS other than Windows 10

Hi there! I have found an Acer ES1-132 laptop. Apart from the screen being broken, everything functioned. I removed the screen from the laptop and connected it to a monitor. I backed up all data from the laptop, now I want to use it as a small server. I first tried installing Ubuntu server, but it failed to install the OS, when booting up it shows an error message: No bootable device. I thought the error was caused by Ubuntu server not installing properly, so I tried installing other Linux distros, but they all showed the same error message: No bootable device.

I tried changing some bios settings like secure boot, but they all didn't help. And searching on YouTube didn't help solving my problem. I could find people having the same issue with other Acer laptops, but they all could fix it by changing a bios setting this laptop doesn't have. I also found the bios very limited in settings you could change. And searching on this forum didn't help very much too.

It seems as if it is impossible to run any other OS other than Windows 10.

Could someone help me install Ubuntu server on my acer ES1-132 laptop (or just any Linux distro) ?

Thanks in advance!

PS: I have a model with a 32gb emmc drive, maybe that matters, because I have seen people with this laptop model with a hdd.

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Leostat

It looks like this is a common problem, There is a solution over here:

https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/problem-installing-linux-mint-18-2-cinnamon-on-acer-es1-132-notebook-4175616648/

Although the user mentions mint, it should be the same for any Ubuntu based OS

And then for poserity incase the forum goes down:

@Jonny_Mango

1. Create a bootable USB stick https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/...(v=ws.11).aspx

2. Download the latest version of Linux Mint and save it to your hard drive https://linuxmint.com/download.php

3. Burn an ISO of the download onto the USB stick using Rufus Portable https://rufus.akeo.ie/

4. Plug the USB into the laptop on which you want to install Linux and start it up

5. When the Acer logo appears hold down the F2 key to enter the BIOS

6. Set a supervisor password (and write it down!), disable Secure Boot and select the USB stick with Linux on it as the first choice in the Boot tab

7. Hit F10 > Enter to save changes and reboot - your notebook should now boot into a live version of Linux Mint (running from the USB stick)

8. Double click on the Install Linux Mint icon and follow the instructions: When prompted don't connect to the Internet, and choose to wipe the drive (erase all data) and install Linux Mint - let the software take care of creating partitions etc.

9. Once the installation is complete, before you restart, open a terminal by hitting Ctrl, Alt & T simultaneously. Type, or copy & paste, the following:

sudo efibootmgr -c -L "Windows Boot Manager" -l "\EFI\ubuntu\grubx64.efi"

then hit Enter. All being well you should now see the cursor flashing after a "$" on the next line in the terminal window

10. Shutdown using the Menu button in the bottom left corner of your screen

11. Once shut down remove the USB stick and then power up again - hopefully your notebook will boot straight into the login page for Linux Mint, indicating success.

If you get the No Bootable Device screen again then you could try again with steps 1-8, then in step 9 type, or copy & paste, the following instead:

sudo efibootmgr -c -L "Windows Boot Manager" -l "\EFI\ubuntu\shimx64.efi"

faroukwalid

Tried doing that with Ubuntu server, still not booting from the emmc drive. Is there something else I can try to make it boot?

Leostat

After the efi bootmgr command was there any output?

What it may be worth doing is booting into the installer again, and open a terminal before doing anything, if the t combo doesn't work you can use the TTY's instead by hitting ctrl+alt+1

1 to 8 will go through them, there should be the graphics on 7 or 6, a terminal on 1 or 2 and then the others will be things like logs

From that if you just type

efibootmgr -v

Does it show the Ubuntu as a listed bootable image?

This one may need a bit of back and forth to figure out , so sorry in advance aha 🙂.

faroukwalid

Hello, thanks for your quick response.

I ran Ubuntu again from an USB stick so I could run the command you asked me to run this is the output I got:

root@ubuntu-server:/# efibootmgr -v
BootCurrent: 0001
Timeout: 0 seconds
BootOrder: 2001,2002,2003
Boot0000* Unknown Device:       HD(1,GPT,30b70648-0faf-42bb-8c7a-4a0d82a20088,0x800,0x219800)/File(\EFI\ubuntu\shimx64.efi)RC
Boot0001* USB HDD: SMI     USB DISK PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x15,0x0)/USB(1,0)/HD(1,MBR,Ox9dfef00,0x800,Oxf00000)RC
Boot2001* EFI USB Device        RC
Boot2002* EFI DVD/CDROM RC
Boot2003* EFI Network   RC
root@ubuntu-server:/#

I don't see Ubuntu as a listed bootable image. I didn't install Ubuntu again after trying to fix it using this command:

sudo efibootmgr -c -L "Windows Boot Manager" -l "\EFI\ubuntu\shimx64.efi"

Shall I try installing ubuntu again and then see if it pops up as a bootable device?

Leostat

Aye grub hasn't been added to the boot which is odd.

I think 0000 is the HDD and 0001 is the usb stick, 0 had the efi image but it isn't in the boot order 🤔

Try installing, go through the wizard add the grub stuff, the once it finishes add in the Ubuntu with the above command but add -v to the end

efibootmgr -c -L "Windows Boot Manager" -l "\EFI\ubuntu\shimx64.efi" -v

Let us know if there is any output at all! then do the efi -v both while in the install wizard .

If it isn't listed, you may be able to force it to boot by setting the boot order as

Efibootmgr -o 0000,2001,2002,2003

As long as this bit HD(1,GPT,30b70648-0faf-42bb-8c7a-4a0d82a20088,0x800,0x219800)/File(\EFI\ubuntu\shimx64.efi)RC. Is the guid of the internal emmc it should be right. I wonder if it's trying to write to somewhere which doesn't exist due to the storage being attached in some weird way