V3-771 Cannot get into BIOS to rebuild from recovery DVD

bogstandard · January 2015

Hello everyone,

My Windows 8 install got corrupted and will not boot. So I just want to get the laptop to boot onto the recovery DVD or any DVD so I can rebuild it.

No matter how hard I press F2 nothing happens and I keep getting "No Bootable Device, Hit any key." This just takes me into an empty boot menu! I have tried with what I know to be bootable CD/DVD in the internal and have used external DVD drives.

I just want to get into the setup to boot onto the DVD drive. How difficult can that be! So far very and totally frustrating.

Any advice or help welcome.

Many thanks for your time.

Paul

bogstandard · February 2015

Hello again,

This is now strangely fixed. I had tried to boot on to many Ultimate Boot type disks with no luck. I popped in a Windows 7 DVD which started loading but failed at first attempt.

I rebooted and then the F2 worked fine. I changed UEFI to Classic BIOS got the boot menu key at start up and booted onto Windows 7 DVD. So far loading fine.

This is nuts. Does the original Windows 8 installation which crashed affect the BIOS/UEFI? I'm old school and the two should be totally independent. The OS should have nothing to do with the computer boot mechanism.

Many thanks

Paul

Edit: Seems like Secure Boot is the culprit https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh824987.aspx

philetus · February 2015

As soon as you push power, start tapping F2 repeatedly. Some times if you wait for the prompt, you miss it.

IronFly · February 2015

Try also F12 to enter boot menu.

bogstandard · February 2015

Cheers for the replies but neither work.

Hitting either F2/F12 fails and I get the No bootable device almost immediately.

Fearing the worst and I have an expensive door stop.

Many thanks

Paul

bogstandard · February 2015

Hello again,

This is now strangely fixed. I had tried to boot on to many Ultimate Boot type disks with no luck. I popped in a Windows 7 DVD which started loading but failed at first attempt.

I rebooted and then the F2 worked fine. I changed UEFI to Classic BIOS got the boot menu key at start up and booted onto Windows 7 DVD. So far loading fine.

This is nuts. Does the original Windows 8 installation which crashed affect the BIOS/UEFI? I'm old school and the two should be totally independent. The OS should have nothing to do with the computer boot mechanism.

Many thanks

Paul

Edit: Seems like Secure Boot is the culprit https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh824987.aspx

IronFly · February 2015

Yes, sometimes secure boot, if windows 8.x had a bad crash, can lock you outside BIOS, this is why a recovery/installation disk/usb media is always needed to fix this issues.