My ultimate goal is to install Xubuntu on this computer, but I am stuck.

I cannot find any way to get into the BIOS to change settings, including being able to boot to the USB installer drive.

I have tried F1 held, F1 repeated, Fn+F1 (held/repeated), same with F2, same with F12, same with Del.

I tried telling Windows to boot to UEFI settings, but it reboots directly to windows.

I ended pulling the drive and removing all the partitions, in hopes that then it wouldn’t try to boot to Windows anymore. Now it just gives me this:

Using this menu, I can’t boot to USB, nor can I boot to DVD.

I opened it and do not see any jumpers on the visibe side of the motherboard. I also did not see a CMOS battery. There are lots of tiny ribbon cables and the heat sink+fan that I’ll have to remove if I need to look on the other side.

What I want most is access the the BIOS / UEFI settings.

If a workaround like installing an OS to the drive using another machine and then putting back in will probably work, then I’ll try that, but that will be such a hassle.

  • @moody
    5•1 month ago

    Look for a tiny hole on the side of your laptop, kind of like for a SIM card on your phone.

    • @Zachariah@lemmy.worldOP
      3•1 month ago

      OMFGWTF I’ve never heard of this before and it’s not anywhere I searched.

      Thank you!

      Held a SIM tool in there while booting and 🎉

      • @Zachariah@lemmy.worldOP
        2•1 month ago

        Spoke too soon. I got to that menu, but it still takes m to the boot menu instead of the BIOS Setup.

        More info: I wondered if I needed to keep holding it for the selection, but that didn’t help.

        I do notice, that I don’t even need to turn on the computer. I just poke the hole, and it boots to the Novo Button Menu

        Looks like I’m not the only one with this problem: https://www.reddit.com/r/Lenovo/comments/kwur4r/bios_not_working_nornally/

        Also, Novo button brings up the novo menu but every option just boots me into Windows apart from the Recovery one which brings me into Windows recovery from where I can get in BIOS but i want to go into BIOS without the help of an OS, I want to use F2 or Novo button just like on a normal laptop

        The only way I can get into the bios is by using advanced restart feature of windows 10 but still it is not normal for me to not be able to manually enter bios after shutdown. And I don’t want to try installing linux knowing I can’t get into BIOS without some OS feature because if my linux install fails somehow, and i m stuck without a functional OS then I wouldn’t be able to enter it manually.