Acer TravelMate P249 N16Q1 laptop. Trouble accessing BIOS boot menu (Model no. TMP249-M-50XC)

regalsimian

I've tried numerous ways to access the boot menu for my Acer TravelMate P249 N16Q1 laptop.

I've smashed the F12 button for days on boot up. No dice.

When I run the Advanced Startup and choose the EFI USB Device or EFI DVD/CDROM choices, the device tells me System doesn't have any [CD/DVD/USB] boot option. Please select another boot option in Boot Manager Menu.

But the Boot Manager does not have any other options other than standard boot from the hard drive.

My purpose is to wipe the hard drive using DBAN from a bootable device. I can then reinstall Windows for a clean platform.

[Edited the thread to add model name to the title]

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/708843/acer-travelmate-p249-n16q1-laptop-trouble-accessing-bios-boot-menu

If your TravelMate P249 N16Q1 is the model TMP249-G2-M as TravelMate P249 N16Q1 is not an official model number, as the TMP249-G2-M has the Win-10 OS, you don’t need DBAN to wipe the boot drive and to reinstall windows.

Construct a windows installation USB with Rufus 4.5 and put the Win-10 .ISO file onto that USB, once you have done that, insert the bootable USB into the TravelMate USB side port and reboot, as this will select the bootable drive and you can proceed with the windows clean installation and you can format the boot drive and install windows. After you have installed a proper installation of Win-10 you can update the bios to this laptops last bios version 1.40 as your laptop must have a coorupt bios for you not to be able to access the bios within windows advanced startup or the F2 key. Good luck and hope this helps you out.

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billsey

But in answer to your actual question, did you enable the boot menu in the BIOS? It is disabled by default for security reasons…

regalsimian

Yes, you hit the nail on the head with my problem. I cannot access the BIOS to run a bootable drive from my USB port. I hit F12 on boot up, but I'm not given an option to boot from USB or CD/DVD. Here's the model number below. Thanks for your help!

billsey

That's not the full model number, only the series of laptops. Yours should be something like TMP249-xxx-xxxx and on the same sticker as your serial number. F12 doesn't go to the BIOS. Try a DEL instead. You have to enable the boot menu in the BIOS before F12 will do anything.

regalsimian

TMP249-M-50XC

DEL key did nothing except boot normally into Windows.

billsey

OK, on the TravelMate P249-M series the BIOS entry key is an F2. You might have to use Fn-F2 if the keys are in Media mode. That's why DEL didn't work…

regalsimian

Thanks. I will try F2 and the other keys when I get back from travel.