I am using an Acer Travelmate laptop and I can’t go into BIOS or Bootmenu with F2 or F12 respectively.
When I turn on laptop, there’s the Acer logo and a label stating to press F2 to go into BIOS and F12 to change Boot device. Neither of them work.
I’ve tried:
Downloading latest BIOS.
Repeated tapping, Fn+key, repeatedly pressing key before turning on.
Turned off Fast startup.
No option to boot in UFEI firmware from advanced settings.
Drained battery, pressed power button 10 times to drain remaining power.
Force Shut down laptop by pressing power key for 5-7 seconds
Using Shift key while shutting down
None of the methods is working.
It directly boots into Windows, as if no effect of these things.
In system information, I checked BIOS mode which shows Legacy.
Internet suggests to remove the CMOS battery and reinstall in an hour or so but I am afraid I will break something else while opening this laptop. Is there any other way to fix this?
When you say no option for UEFI in advanced settings, did you try the right-click on the start button, then “shutdown“ sub menu, then hold shift + left-click the “restart“ option?
Or some combination like that through window’s start button?
There’s an option in Windows where you can set it to enter the bios on next reboot. Can also cut power three times in a row while windows is booting, gives you access to recovery options, where iirc you can also enter bios on next boot.
I’ve used this specific trick a few of times, to get into recovery mode (F8 during boot on older Windows systems), and I’ve never had a problem. I’ve turned off computers that way many times through the years, can’t recall I ever had a problem. I do everything I can to prevent doing it this way, seeing that it’s not standard procedure. If the options are remove CMOS battery or this approach, i would without a question use the “cut power” approach.
It would also work by holding down the power button long enough so it turns off during boot, just not sure how fast it boots. If it takes two seconds to boot and button has to be held down for 5 seconds to force shutdown, it’d be difficult to do.