Slow Hard drive.... unable to reach BIOS

[Christina]

It's me again ! My hard drive has some bad segments I believe, plenty of room but running very slow. I would like to reinstall but can't get to bios anymore. I have an ASUS Series A53U and run Ubuntu 16.04. I know the problem is with my hard drive as I put in a different one with Windows 7 (YUK) on it and everything ran fine. I have to run fsck every 3rd or 4th restart. It is very hard to do anything on internet when it takes so long to load a page lol. At the moment, updates won't install either......

 

[arochester]

but can't get to bios anymore.

Why? What is the problem? What happens?

 

[Christina]

Why? What is the problem? What happens?

Sorry, I restarted right after the post and it has taken this long to come back up lol. When I hold the f2 key when starting it just flashes back and forth between blank screen and purple ASUS. I used to be able to get right to the BIOS long ago..... Things are extremely slow to load and I use Chromium which used to run fine but now ......

 

[arochester]

Are you doing this?

Press and hold the F2 button

, then click the power button. DO NOT RELEASE the F2 button

until the BIOS screen display.

Source - https://www.asus.com/uk/support/FAQ/1008829/

 

[Christina]

Are you doing this? Source - https://www.asus.com/uk/support/FAQ/1008829/

Yes, exactly, I have held for 5 min or so with no luck. I finally get tired and release then it boots ...

 

[atanere]

Hi Christina! When was the last time you removed the laptop battery? It's definitely a weird thing not to be able to access the BIOS.

This may not help, but if the battery has been connected a long time, which is likely, then physically remove it and unplug the charger. Then push your power button repeatedly. It won't turn on, of course, but push it about 20 times or so... even hold it down some of the time for a few extra seconds. The goal of this is to discharge all the stored voltages and be sure it is completely drained.

Then just plug in the charger and try to start the computer and access the BIOS, even without the battery if it will. If it won't, then replace the battery and try again to get to BIOS.

It's a shot in the dark, but you never know.

 

[Christina]

Hi Christina! When was the last time you removed the laptop battery? It's definitely a weird thing not to be able to access the BIOS.

This may not help, but if the battery has been connected a long time, which is likely, then physically remove it and unplug the charger. Then push your power button repeatedly. It won't turn on, of course, but push it about 20 times or so... even hold it down some of the time for a few extra seconds. The goal of this is to discharge all the stored voltages and be sure it is completely drained.

Then just plug in the charger and try to start the computer and access the BIOS, even without the battery if it will. If it won't, then replace the battery and try again to get to BIOS.

It's a shot in the dark, but you never know.

Then should I insert my thumb drive to boot from if it does go to BIOS? That is where I put the download to reinstall.....

 

[atanere]

That's up to you. I'm just hoping to get BIOS to respond again, then you could install a new Linux anytime.

But I'm concerned about you description above too. You may need to replace the hard drive soon.

 

[Christina]

Well, that did not work

 

[atanere]

Okay, sorry. Wishful thinking. There is even more along this plan, but it may be too much to get into. The BIOS settings are saved because of an internal battery, and these go bad after about 5-10 years. On desktops it is always a small coin battery... some laptops use the same style, but some laptops are different. And sometimes it is easy to access it and change it, and sometimes it is very difficult. I'm at work and can't research your laptop very well to see what we might learn about your battery, but we might think more about this later.

Here is a possible way for you to move forward though, if you want to try. You mentioned installing a Windows hard drive and it worked okay. Is it possible for you to take your Ubuntu hard drive out and put it into the Windows computer long enough to do a fresh Linux install, and then put it back in the laptop? It's a long workaround, but it should achieve the goal of a fresh Linux for you.

 

[Christina]

Okay, sorry. Wishful thinking. There is even more along this plan, but it may be too much to get into. The BIOS settings are saved because of an internal battery, and these go bad after about 5-10 years. On desktops it is always a small coin battery... some laptops use the same style, but some laptops are different. And sometimes it is easy to access it and change it, and sometimes it is very difficult. I'm at work and can't research your laptop very well to see what we might learn about your battery, but we might think more about this later.

Here is a possible way for you to move forward though, if you want to try. You mentioned installing a Windows hard drive and it worked okay. Is it possible for you to take your Ubuntu hard drive out and put it into the Windows computer long enough to do a fresh Linux install, and then put it back in the laptop? It's a long workaround, but it should achieve the goal of a fresh Linux for you.

Well, the Windows hard drive is the one that came with this laptop. I switched this hard drive in from my old laptop. We had bought the hard drive new and installed Ubuntu on it to replace a bad one in the old laptop. So, guess the answer is no lol

 

[Christina]

I have to go to town quick so will be back on in an hour or so.

 

[atanere]

Ha, okay then. We'll all try to figure something out. Chat later.

Stan

 

[atanere]

Going back over @arochester's link above, Asus describes a 2nd method of getting into BIOS... did you try that also? Instead of the F2 key, press and hold the ESC key while turning on power. If you have the Linux boot USB plugged in, you may can select it at this stage too.

Hope that works! Or we'll keep trying!

Cheers

 

[Christina]

Didn't work. Didn't even slow down the boot process. Like I wasn't even pressing key.

 

[atanere]

This video describes getting the Boot Menu a little differently... worth a try. Instead of holding down the ESC key, you start tapping it after hitting the power button. Have your USB plugged in in case it works.

 

[Christina]

This video describes getting the Boot Menu a little differently... worth a try. Instead of holding down the ESC key, you start tapping it after hitting the power button. Have your USB plugged in in case it works.

Ok, reached BIOS half doz times or so but could not boot from my USB. Here are the shots of it. First time around I chose the USB Flash Memory5.0 option. 2nd time went to set up and tried to choose USB option. My laptop is plugged in and battery shows full. However, it does jump back and forth between full and charging. But still, it is plugged in.

 

[atanere]

Well, more bizarre things! LOL! The power warning is weird, but so is the USB info you show. Might need to Google more about "Flash5.0"... it doesn't seem like that is your USB stick.

On the plus side, you've got BIOS! And on another plus side, maybe, is that your BIOS is set to boot from DVD without making any changes. If your DVD drive is working okay, and if you can burn Linux to DVD from another computer... then that will be another possible option for you to get a fresh Linux installed on this laptop.

But are there any options in BIOS for you to modify the "hard drive group" or "cdrom group" to include USB, other than the Flash5 thing?

 

[Christina]

Well, more bizarre things! LOL! The power warning is weird, but so is the USB info you show. Might need to Google more about "Flash5.0"... it doesn't seem like that is your USB stick.

On the plus side, you've got BIOS! And on another plus side, maybe, is that your BIOS is set to boot from DVD without making any changes. If your DVD drive is working okay, and if you can burn Linux to DVD from another computer... then that will be another possible option for you to get a fresh Linux installed on this laptop.

But are there any options in BIOS for you to modify the "hard drive group" or "cdrom group" to include USB, other than the Flash5 thing?

I really don't know and the reason I didn't do it from dvd is because the drive hasn't been working .
In the 4th image it has hard drive BBS priorities, should I check that? It is under the Boot Menu.

 

[atanere]

Yes, sometimes if you hit Enter on things like that is may show further options on the right. I saw one option to Add Device and that might help too. I'm just not convinced the "Flash5" is your drive, though I may be wrong. It just looks odd, and it didn't show with your DVD and WDC hard drive as a boot option.