Computer halp!
 

Okay I am by no means computer dumb. But I've ran into an issue that I've never had before.

I bought a laptop with Windows 7. I deleted 7 and installed Ubuntu. When I was trying to install Ubuntu I had an issue with getting the Lappy to boot from the USB Drive. Eventually I had to have Ubuntu do some voodoo in linux (there was some file on the usb drive that you could load in windows to force boot to the usb drive or some shit).

Now I did try pressing the keys to see the boot menu and what not when trying to boot from the USB drive and nothing came up. I also changed the boot priority in the BIOS to boot from usb and cd first. Neither worked.

So ubuntu did it's magic and it booted from the CD. It installed, and I was happy.


Now I'm trying to put Winblows back (long story, don't ask, not the problem here). I can't get it to boot from the USB or CD drive at all. The bios settings do nothing, and there is no boot menu key... well there is, but nothing comes up.

So I messed with GRUB in linux added an option for this boot saver thing that will allow you to boot from USB or CD from GRUB since out of the box GRUB can't boot from a CD/USB. Well I installed that, and when I go to the USB or CDROM it says device not found. So basically I think the mobo is having issues.

Anyways does anyone know any voodoo shit that can make a CD or USB boot without using the bios settings, or boot menu? Short of sending this thing to Samsung, which I don't want to do, I'm out of ideas.

Maybe pull the cmos battery on the motherboard, it should force it to enter setup on next boot and let you choose boot options?

Oh wait, forgot it was a laptop...

Nothing you do will let you choose the boot menu?

I've seen that b4.. Just remove all the HDD partitions.

Apparently for Samsung, ESC should get you to the boot menu. It doesn't work.

I've also tried every other F key, nothing.

I'm not sure how to delete all the partitions. I can't boot into a boot disc to delete them all. Although I don't see how that would change anything since the hard drive is being detected just fine, it's the USB ports and CD Rom drive that are not working. But they work perfect once it's booted into the OS.

Anyway you can get into the BIOS?

What model laptop is it?

You can delete the partitions while in ubuntu.. Kind of a OS suicide thing! I am MSCP but not well versed in unix. Or put the HDD in a running computer and do it that way.

This partitions-deleting business makes no sense.

The BIOS' boot device sequence selection or runtime boot device selector should take priority over the Prophet Muhammad himself inscribing holy words into the HDD's boot sector.

Yup, you need to get into the BIOS and see what the boot options are.

Listen to Joe.

You've futzed up your MBR, which doesn't mean crap since the BIOS can actively choose the bootable device.

Change your first/primary/whatever bootable device to CDRom, boot into the windows installer, have your Windows CD wipe all partitions, and then enjoy your installation experience.

There's no way anything wrote something into your BIOS, that's just a MBR tweak, nothing more.

I hate it when things don't make sense! I'm sure it's a BIOS bug or OS feature or a combination of both.. Could not give a shit less really. I do know that nineteen times out of twenty my solution works in situtions like this.
Maybe the OP does not understand what he/she says they do.. I dunno. Either way by removing all partitions it should boot from CD/DVD.

Fdisking the partitions isn't graceful, but its a quick and dirty hack that will work.

What I've done in this situation is hooked the HDD up to another computer and booted the other install disk from there, that way you can get GRUB setup for both OSs or do whatever else you need to do. Its really really odd that you can't see it in the BIOS though, I might try updating it, or flashing the same version of the BIOS back on there and see if that fixes it as well.

I'm grateful for all the suggestions. I would however like to bold something that was in my first post... Hard to take suggestions seriously when you didn't even read the first damn post.

I CAN get into the bios. I change the bios settings to boot from CD and USB before the HDD, and with a bootable CD or USB drive (boots in other computers) it does not boot from either. As if they don't exist.

I believe maybe the only chance I have is to remove the HDD.

It's a Samsung Series 7. And it is currently under warranty, but I need it now, not 3 months from now when Samsung finished fucking with it. Plus this seems like it should be a simple fix. I know there must be a way, since the Ubuntu usb install did something when in Windows to make it boot.

Is there an option in bios for UEFI / legacy? (If yes, try legacy.)

I tried that and no dice.


BUT

It's fixed. We may never know the issue. I reset the bios to factory defaults. And it booted from the CD. I don't know if something was messed up from the factory, or what, but that did the job.

There wasn't even anything different that I could tell from the factory settings. So who knows, maybe I got lucky that boot and it had nothing to do with the BIOS.