Acer Aspire 5 Debian install went bad. When installed it had a BSOD issue with error

I tried to install Debian on my Laptop (Acer Aspire 5 / SNID : xxxx) while it had Windows already installed on it. I wanted to remove Windows et replace it with Debian so I format the disk to regain full space, created the partition for /home, /tmp and /var and installed my Debian. Everything went smoothly (I'm used to Debian distro but as Virtual Machine), aside from a Wi-Fi driver missing because it was non-free (still, Wi-Fi was working, but anyway).

After the install, Debian live boot CD asked me to reboot and remove the bootable device which I did. To my horror, Debian did not started, in its place, I had an Windows BSOD with error code 0xc000000e and a long message stating my computer needed repairs.

The message went like : "Press ENTER to retry booting, F1 to access emergency recovery system, F8 to reach boot setup, and ESC to access BIOS parameters."

ENTER and F8 both refresh the graphic without rebooting my computer. I still have the same message. F1 makes my computer restart and show me again this message. ESC makes my computer reboot and freeze on ACER Logo.

I'm afraid I might have corrupt the BIOS firmware. I read (afterward) that Acer Aspire comes with RTS Optane stuff which is not compatible with Linux. Is there any way to flash the BIOS, maybe access it, and remove RST ? Any others idea ?

[edited the post to hide sensitive data]

[Edited the thread to add issue detail]

Accepted answers

billsey

You missed some steps while installing the Linux distribution by trying to bypass them. Delete all partitions on the drive, leaving nothing but unallocated space, then install Linux to the unallocated space. It will create all needed partitions and populate them with the correct data. You didn't create an EFI partition likely, or didn't delete the EFI partition for Windows.

All comments

billsey

You missed some steps while installing the Linux distribution by trying to bypass them. Delete all partitions on the drive, leaving nothing but unallocated space, then install Linux to the unallocated space. It will create all needed partitions and populate them with the correct data. You didn't create an EFI partition likely, or didn't delete the EFI partition for Windows.

kyriya

Hello Billsey,

First thing first, thank you for your reply, fast and on point. I did not correctly deleted the Windows EFI partition which lead to the system booting on the old Windows while having the whole Windows deleted.