ES1-732, Installing Linux on a 2018 Aspire

DiamondTiara

ES1-732, Pentium quadcore 2018. came with a SSD which was destroyed, I will attempt whatever data recovery later but my client needs his laptop, so I installed a WD 500 black and I'm trying to install any Linux distro so far.
Disabled secureboot, had to set up a password.
I still have the issues trying to write the grub on the boot drive, installer crashes, when I try at best running boot-repair, it sends me the message ‘‘locked-nvram detected’’.

Tried to shortcut the battery trying to reset it, no success.

I don't want to trash this machine, it can do a good job, any idea or anyone in the same case? There is no option to set the UEFI to Legacy.

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

GAMING6698

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/712077/installing-linux-on-a-2018-aspire

If an SSD is physically damaged or not detected by the computer, recovering data can be challenging:

• Avoid using the drive further, as any writes can overwrite recoverable data.
• Consider sending the drive to a professional data recovery service if the data is valuable. They may be able to extract data by desoldering chips or other advanced techniques.
• Software recovery tools have limited effectiveness with SSDs compared to HDDs, especially if TRIM is enabled. Deleted files may be immediately unrecoverable.
• Older SSDs without TRIM or with spare unallocated space may allow some recovery with software.

Installing Linux on a Replacement SSD

To install Linux on a new SSD in your Acer Aspire ES1-732:

1. Disable Secure Boot in BIOS and set a BIOS password.
2. Create a bootable Linux USB drive using rufus in GPT partition as it can boot into UEFI bios.
3. During installation, select the new SSD as the target drive.
4. If the installer crashes while trying to write GRUB, try using a tool like Boot Repair from the live USB environment.
5. If Boot Repair fails with a "locked-nvram" error, you may need to reset the BIOS settings.

Resetting the BIOS by shorting the battery pins may not always work.If you continue to have issues, try installing a different Linux distribution or seek further assistance in Linux support forums. Why didn't you install windows? it's better.

This looks more like linux issue rather than laptop and New laptops no longer support Legacy mode. Create Bootable usb in gpt partion to boot in UEFI bios.

billsey

With most Linux distributions there is no need to disable secure boot, since the EFI images for those are signed. You probably don't want to try and install a distribution that's not signed since you have no idea why they haven't signed it and it might have security holes. The Aspire ES1-732 models came with an Apollo Lake chipset and one SATA port for storage. That is pretty standard and I don't see any reason why most any Linux distribution wouldn't install easily. You will have to either have the SATA mode in AHCI, but I don't believe these models supports iRST so you should have no conflicts there. I should ask, why aren't you just reinstalling Windows? The activation key is stored in the BIOS so as long as you install the same version (likely Home) it should work fine.

sleepwalker

Restrictions on the EFI partition cause the Grub installation step to fail.

Linux is actually installed even when the GRUB install has failed. It is the last step in the installation process and does not impact the way Linux runs. Alternatively, you can install Linux without GRUB.

You will need to use a Boot Manager like rEFInd to be able to boot into linux. You can also boot into Windows with rEFInd.

Google "rodsbooks" or "refind boot manager" for more information.

DiamondTiara

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1295923#Comment_1295923

Hi, wanted to update and yes, the rEFInd solution works post install. Created a bootable USB from the ISO on the git and oh, I can see my OS, I click on it as it shows a gracefully crafted, frutiger aero themed interface, and I see the lines of the boot then goes to the desktop! I tested it, rebooted and installed rEFInd.
And that's a very decent machine on LMDE6 even with Cinnamon, all works smoothly!

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1295702#Comment_1295702

Sadly all other options have been tested, including unsoldering the CMOS battery, the main battery, and shorting it for a couple of minutes henceforth clearing any resilient cap keeping the bad S-RAM data. (they call it NVRAM now whatever) I blame the previous Windows 10 bricking it previously as the SSD was of decent quality but caching is generally a bad idea on a SSD, now it is faster on a Western Digital 500Gb Black Edition SATA III than the cheap "Big Reservoir" SSD on Win10.

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1295633#Comment_1295633

I suspect some power/vreg issue on the SSD, I hope it's just that, if anything training the customer to do backups on a external drive is important. Not on the cloud or on thumbdrives that can get lost or stolen. A 2Tb toshiba with USB3 is inexpensive and can be concealed in a safe and discrete place the owner only knows.

sleepwalker

Hi there,

I have ES1-7ES1-732 too.

The grub install fails because of the read write execute permissions on the EFI boot partition.

I cangive you a somewhat clumsy workaround that I have been using since 2017 when I got my machine.

1. Use a tool like partition magic to shrink the windows partition.
2. Use. a flash drive to install your Linux distro, but Don't Install GRUB… (For Ubuntu based installs it used to be " ubiquity -s " )
3. You will be given optionoptions to create new partitions ans swap space .. go with whatever suits your needs.
4. Download a copy of rEFInd from https://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/
5. You can find quite detailed installation information on the following website: https://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/
6. Create a bookable image of rEFInd
7. Plug it into a USB port and press F12 during start up to get to the boot menu
8. Choose rEFInd and you will be able to choose betweenb all available operating systems.
9. Choose the Linux distro and wait for the timer or hit enter to boot into linux

I used an external USB drive to boot into Linux.

When I first found out about rEFInd I managed to install it into the EFI boot but a forced windows upgrade messed that up and I never bothered to try repair it.

Please bear in mind that the grub installation is the final step in the setup process. This means that you should already be able to boot into linux using a rEFInd USB.

This link will allow you to access the advanced BIOS tabs if you need to.

https://www.wikihow.com/Open-BIOS-Advanced-Debug-Mode-on-Acer-Laptop

Hope this help.

sleepwalker

The problem is due to restrictions an the FAT32 EFI Partition.

The permission issues cause the GRUB install to failure fail.

The rEFInd Boot Manager can be used to boot into Linux.

https://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/

you can download the rEFInd code from Sourceforge

https://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/

https://www.wikihow.com/Open-BIOS-Advanced-Debug-Mode-on-Acer-Laptop

Hope this helps

billsey

Or use an EFI editor to add the Linux mount point to the Windows Boot Manager then set whichever you wish as the default and use F12 to choose the other at boot time.