New windows 10 laptop; wiped it to run Kubuntu--didn't work; can't reinstall windows

[kirstenasmith101]

I wiped the drive of my new computer to download kubuntu 17.04, removed windows 10. I couldn't keep any version of kubuntu on my computer without it crashing. It would either crash during installation (the screen would freeze, couldn't use mouse or keyboard, if I had sound playing, it would continue to play), or during the first or second reboot (same symptoms) and it would definitely freeze when I specifically tried to install package updates. I tried two versions of fedora too and these couldn't even make it to step 1 of installation. I kept getting firmware bug errors ("firmware bug cpu 0 from bank 4 invalid threshold interrupt offset 1 for bank 4") which I'm assuming could be due to efi firmware that requires a microsoft signed key? Anyway, I gave up. I tried to reinstall windows using a bootable usb, but now that won't even boot and it's not showing up in the BIOS as a bootable device. When I boot I'm just brought to the grub command terminal (since kubuntu which is installed had crashed). Help???

 

[mjslakeridge]

Does your laptop have any USB 2 ports? Try those, as the USB 3 ports won't work until Windows basic drivers are installed.

 

[kirstenasmith101]

I've been only using my USB 2.0 ports, actually. I have a laptop with windows on it so I'm going to try using Windows Media Creation tool to make the bootable usb drive.
I also should have mentioned my laptop is an Acer Aspire a315-21

 

[mjslakeridge]

Hopefully the Media Creation Tool will do the trick. I used it earlier this year to do a clean install of Windows 8.1 Pro on a new HDD. I assume you deleted the Windows recovery partition when you "wiped the hard drive"?

 

[kirstenasmith101]

Sigh. Yep. I would really prefer to have linux on the laptop, but if I have to deal with Windows 10 I guess I'll have to. I hope it will work.
One thing I came across for some people with Acer Aspire's trying to download linux (though not the same model a315-21), was that their problem lied in the BIOS. My BIOS is two versions behind, but I'm not sure I could even upgrade it since it downloads as an executable file--one not run by linux. Do you think it's worth it/makes sense to try, once I install Windows 10 *successfully*, to upgrade my BIOS and then perhaps try installing kubuntu again on a separate partition to see if it maintains itself?

 

[mjslakeridge]

Certainly worth a try. Sounds like you are pretty technically adept. If you can get the kubuntu OS to properly install and operate with the BIOS update, then you can delete the Windows partition, probably the route you should have gone the first time. Or clone the Windows partition to an external drive, so if you have to use Windows again for some reason, you won't have to re-install it, just recover from the partition image file. (I use Acronis True Image Home to do my disk backups).

 

[moogle89]

If you have another windows computer available, you can use mini tool partition wizard to wipe the usb drive clean properly. Windows formatting can be dodgy.
Then you can use rufus to make a boot drive with any ubuntu distro you want.

I had a similar problem with trying to install ubuntu on a sony laptop, and it turned out it was the drive's partitions that were at fault. Incomplete partitions that are not properly deleted can be problematic.

Once you have finished putting kubuntu on the drive and boot from it, you will probably have an option to "check the files" or something similar (ubuntu 16.04 did). Check the files before you proceed with the installation of the new OS, and if all is OK, then proceed with the installation.

Your problem might be different from mine but I noticed some similarities so I thought maybe I could throw in my 2 cents.

 

[kirstenasmith101]

@mjslakeridge It's been certainly frustrating. I managed to finally get Windows 10 re-installed onto my laptop, but it was only installing onto legacy boot. Fixed that.
I'm going to look at partitioning and installing kubuntu again--and I realized as I was re-installing Windows 10 that I never paid attention to whether the hard drive was formatted as MBR or GPT, and since EFI boot only really works properly with GPT on my laptop, I'm hoping that that's been the reason all along. I'm actually pretty new at all of this troubleshooting (it's fun though), so I'm going to look into kubuntu and GPT. As I remember in the install there wasn't something that specified it was installing onto a GPT hard drive. Not sure if kubuntu wiped any of that in the process when I orginally wiped Windows?

@moogle89 I've been using rufus; I stopped using it and was using multibootusb on my linux pc, but realized somehow that wasn't creating proper windows 10 bootables, so I used my laptop with rufus for those and that worked.
I don't believe kubuntu 17.04 ever gives you that option through the GUI, but I'm sure I could run something in the terminal. Did you get any specific return messages regarding the incomplete partitions that caused your issue? I'll keep a look out for them then.
I appreciate your two cents enormously! I've been working on my laptop for a week now in between school and work, and I just want to get it working properly. ha.

 

[moogle89]

Did you get any specific return messages regarding the incomplete partitions that caused your issue? I'll keep a look out for them then.

Not that I remember, just an arbitrary "failed to install" message. But after failing to install one or two times I had a hunch that it was the drive, and it was.
If your kubuntu distro doesn't have any options to check files on the boot screen, you can probably do it later but in my opinion that defeats the purpose.
Just rule out the partition error factor by completely wiping the drive and creating only one partition, for the boot drive. Good luck and have patience, you'll need it lol

 

[kirstenasmith101]

Update:
I got Windows 10 back on and running, updated my BIOS.. BUT. somehow the update wiped or changed the supervisor password I had on my BIOS, so I can't get back in it to disable secure boot or change the boot option. Great.
The only option I can really find is to remove the CMOS battery from the laptop. Other than that the Acer support page says to send it in and they'll reset the password for $100. Um. No? There has to be something they're doing that I can do too.
I would try CMOS reset software (and briefly did but ran into the snag I'll define shortly) but that requires me to run it through vDOS and I don't know how to access my main terminal from the virtual one securely enough as I'm not familiar with DOS.

 

[rgd1101]

http://www.tomsguide.com/forum/id-2317969/read-passwords-lock-codes-pin-numbers.html