Properly stuck with this one

[littleredrooster]

Acer Aspire V5 laptop seems to have crashed last night during a Win update. Got up this morning to a black screen showing ‘No operating system found’.

Big problem now is that I can’t get into the BIOS to see what is going on. I’ve tried every possible combination of F2/F10/F12 with Fn/Shift/Del/Ins during boot-up to get in with no success.

I’ve tried complete power off (with battery removed), holding down the power button for >2 mins (as suggested by the Acer community) and various Ctr-Alt-Del combinations with no joy.

Anyone got any further ideas? My entire life is on here…

[Whoozit]

Remove the ssd, read on another computer? If disk encryption is on, that's not possible.

Boot from a recovery USB?

[James-gbg1e]

Check the forums and see if there's a pre installed recovery partition. Without knowing the model it's impossible to say what the BIOS/Boot menu combinations are.

Failing that, there's a bunch of boot tools you can burn to a USB stick using an app like Rufus. Your boot order should find it is the hard drive isn't found.

Third option is a Live OS image which you can stick on some USB/portable drive which will give you an OS on a stick basically, enough to recover everything and start again.

[littleredrooster]

Whoozit said:

Remove the ssd, read on another computer? If disk encryption is on, that's not possible.

Boot from a recovery USB?

I don’t have access to another computer. Despite a huge search, i seem to have lost the recovery CD.

[littleredrooster]

James-gbg1e said:

Check the forums and see if there's a pre installed recovery partition. Without knowing the model it's impossible to say what the BIOS/Boot menu combinations are.

Failing that, there's a bunch of boot tools you can burn to a USB stick using an app like Rufus. Your boot order should find it is the hard drive isn't found.

Third option is a Live OS image which you can stick on some USB/portable drive which will give you an OS on a stick basically, enough to recover everything and start again.

When I boot up, all get is a black screen with the message’No operating system found’. I do not have another computer to burn a USB stick, unfortunately.

[eltawater]

Sounds like the disk is toast.
Unfortunately if yours is like this link, no amount of keyboard bashing will help and you'll need a boot usb.

https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/211574/I+cant+...

[Whoozit]

littleredrooster said:

James-gbg1e said:

Check the forums and see if there's a pre installed recovery partition. Without knowing the model it's impossible to say what the BIOS/Boot menu combinations are.

Failing that, there's a bunch of boot tools you can burn to a USB stick using an app like Rufus. Your boot order should find it is the hard drive isn't found.

Third option is a Live OS image which you can stick on some USB/portable drive which will give you an OS on a stick basically, enough to recover everything and start again.

When I boot up, all get is a black screen with the message No operating system found . I do not have another computer to burn a USB stick, unfortunately.

If it is booting, then the BIOS is working. The OS not found is a disk error or corrupt OS.

If you are able to get a USB recovery stick (easy to do on another computer, can you call in a favour of a friend) that will allow you to boot the computer and examine the disk.

I had similar happen to me with Win10. As most of my data was all in other locations, I installed a new OS on the drive. Much to my surprise the old OS was still there (called Windows.old if I recall) so I was able to dig out the few bits and bobs I had on the desktop.

[littleredrooster]

Whoozit said:

If it is booting, then the BIOS is working. The OS not found is a disk error or corrupt OS.
.

I m now sure this is correct. I found my external backup drive and plugged it in, half hoping that I d made it bootable. Alas I hadn t, but the tell-tale activity light comes on at boot up showing that the BIOS is working as it is activating the USB sockets. My last hope before buying another laptop is to search the loft for the recovery CD that I m sure i made. I ll put this in a safe place in case I need it

[biggiles]

Whoozit said:

If it is booting, then the BIOS is working. The OS not found is a disk error or corrupt OS.

I agree with Whoozit - if you get this message, the BIOS *is* working, you just need to find the right key(s) to get into it. F2/F10/F10 etc. Especially on a laptop - sometimes you need "Fn" keys as well. Keep trying to find the combination.

[littleredrooster]

Well, I found two recovery CDs. Yee-hah, happy days.

Or not. Neither worked, despite sitting whirring away for 2 or 3 minutes. New laptop needed, then time to strip the drive out of this one to see if it can be reused somehow (it’s a 2Tb Samsung SSD which was quite expensive 5 years ago)

[Digger]

AI info below - have you tried the ESC + F2 suggestion?



Immediately start tapping the F2 key repeatedly (mashing it furiously) before the Acer logo even appears.
Note: If tapping F2 doesn't work, try holding down the Fn key while tapping F2, or pressing Esc + F2 at the same time.

[Digger]

Possibly a drained CMOS battery - take the back off & replace the battery as an idea? CR2032 coin battery.

How old is the laptop?

Step 11 below.

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Acer+Aspire+V5-571+CM...

Edited by Digger on Sunday 18th October 18:13

[PenarthHywel]

Whoozit said:

Remove the ssd, read on another computer? If disk encryption is on, that's not possible.

Boot from a recovery USB?

Your Microsoft account may have a backup of any BitLocker keys at https://account.microsoft.com/devices/recoverykey if you're lucky. I think my issue was adding a new SSD, deleting the old Win 11 partition and not being able to access the other partition that the documents were on or something like that. Got it all sorted in the end, but only after accidentally coming across the BitLocker backup feature.

[dan98]

littleredrooster said:

Well, I found two recovery CDs. Yee-hah, happy days.

Or not. Neither worked, despite sitting whirring away for 2 or 3 minutes. New laptop needed, then time to strip the drive out of this one to see if it can be reused somehow (it s a 2Tb Samsung SSD which was quite expensive 5 years ago)

Not sure you've read many of the previous replies.

Provided it isn't actually broken there's no need to get a new laptop - you'll get it running with a USB W11 drive which you can make on any other PC.

Infact it'll probably work better than it ever did without all the crapware installed on new machines.

[littleredrooster]

dan98 said:

littleredrooster said:

Well, I found two recovery CDs. Yee-hah, happy days.

Or not. Neither worked, despite sitting whirring away for 2 or 3 minutes. New laptop needed, then time to strip the drive out of this one to see if it can be reused somehow (it s a 2Tb Samsung SSD which was quite expensive 5 years ago)

Not sure you've read many of the previous replies.

Provided it isn't actually broken there's no need to get a new laptop - you'll get it running with a USB W11 drive which you can make on any other PC.

Infact it'll probably work better than it ever did without all the crapware installed on new machines.

Not sure you’ve read my previous replies.

I do not have access to any other PC. This is the only Win device in the household, everything else is Apple phones or tablets. Due to moving house a while ago, I have no mates or family in the immediate vicinity - they’re either 160 miles South or 80 miles North of us. I’m probably going to ask a mate to send a USB stick via snail-mail if i can get him to answer his phone!

In reply to some other posters, I have tried Esc-F2/F10/F12 without success as well as re-trying Fn and Shift with them all.

[RizzoTheRat]

If you have a small computer shop anywhere near you (independent rather than Curries), they might be happy to make you a bootable USB drive for the cost of the drive plus some time. Alternatively taking the the whole machine in to them to fix will be cheaper than a new machine.

Personally I'd be tempted to replace the drive, build the PC on the new one, and then use a USB adaptor to connect the old drive and copy anything off, but drives are bloody expensive these days.

[dan98]

littleredrooster said:

Not sure you ve read my previous replies.

I do not have access to any other PC. This is the only Win device in the household, everything else is Apple phones or tablets. Due to moving house a while ago, I have no mates or family in the immediate vicinity - they re either 160 miles South or 80 miles North of us. I m probably going to ask a mate to send a USB stick via snail-mail if i can get him to answer his phone!

In reply to some other posters, I have tried Esc-F2/F10/F12 without success as well as re-trying Fn and Shift with them all.

You can get a USB installer for 12 quid on Ebay.

If the hard drive is actually broken then it might be freezing the BIOS. I'd disagnose that by removing it and then it's F2 to enter BIOS on that model.

[AlexC1981]

Make sure you come back and tell us if you eventually got into the BIOS, because this is a mystery. Maybe a USB keyboard would help.

Always handy to have a second PC in the home. Ex-business mini PCs are cheap and small enough to leave in a drawer until you need it.

[Monsterlime]

What is the exact model number of the laptop?

[dan98]

AlexC1981 said:

Make sure you come back and tell us if you eventually got into the BIOS, because this is a mystery. Maybe a USB keyboard would help.

Always handy to have a second PC in the home. Ex-business mini PCs are cheap and small enough to leave in a drawer until you need it.

Having seen this plenty of times it's not a big mystery.
If the splash screen is disabled it can be pretty hard hitting the right key at the right time, especially if you're not sure which combination it is (should be F2 in this case).

Also as mentioned, it's common for a misconfigured or broken disk to cause the BIOS to freeze at bootup - removing the HD and all USB devices will diagnose this.