Acer Aspire Switch 10 SW5-012 Refuses to boot anything but Windows recovery.

[CupTheYoutuber]

So, I deleted my recovery partition to try to reclaim some of the tiny hard drive on this thing, without reading into it (Stupid, I know) and I ended up bricking the windows install. So I thought, "Oh well, who cares I'll install linux.", and I followed one of the guides.

Now, here comes the problem. When I deleted the recovery partition, windows booted to a blue screen saying I needed to repair my computer, not a big deal right? Just boot linux and move on. Well, not really, because even if I select my USB disk in the boot menu, windows overrides that and just dumps me back at that recovery screen over and over again no matter what I do. I've tried turning secureboot on and off, wiping secure boots settings, changing boot orders, using the f12 menu. Nothing.

Does anyone have any ideas on how I can get this to at the very least get to the grub splash screen, I'm dead set on getting some form of linux to work on this as I dont want to pay Acer for repairs.

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: I forgot to add switch to the name. Whoops.

 

[jjscalak]

hei.
Can you share this ISO again ?
I have problem with Acer SW5-012 - i need WIN7 on it...
But i have problem with install it... and i think i should to back to WIN8.
But your link is expired....

Are you still being dumped back into recovery? Does your flash drive have bootable Linux on it? Or a Linux installation?
I hate to say it man but you might have to repair your Windows 8 installation to get the thing working. Not every UEFI capable laptop BIOS is this way... If you have another computer, you can download a blank Windows 8 ISO from here (for the time being):

https/userscloud.com/rqk8hut8629o

Then you can find an ISO burning program like poweriso. Just beware, if you were to get poweriso from poweriso.com, you have to de-select all of the adware and promotional offers from the installer as you go. If you boot the ISO to a DVD, UEFI will recognize it as a boot device and it will give you advanced troubleshooting and the option to reinstall Windows.

 

[jjscalak]

Someone else have recovery media for Acer Aspire Switch 10 SW5-012 - and can share it ?

 

[somda]

This is the correct answer and yes the USB port on the computer works. Do as Leslie says and just plug-in the USB when in the UEFI screen. Then under 'main' under Secure Boot, use the second option (says something like add EFI file). You should see HDD1 and USB on the next screen - choose USB. For windows 10 you can simply add bootmgr.efi confirm prompts to save, save changes while exiting and you should be able to boot from USB.

NOTE: The USB must be FAT32 formatted (use rufus to burn ISO).

For anyone that has this problem on switch 10. DO NOT DISABLE SECURE BOOT CHECK! Just add your supervisor password and the Secure Boot Mode settings should be available. If you go and disable the secure boot check it will lock these settings out. Been trying to figure this one out for about a week and then just stumbled on to it when I was working with another switch 10 tablet (Because the battery died on the first one, Waiting on the chargers for both of them). Put the supervisor password in and noticed that the stuff was shaded as if it could be changed. Disabled the secure boot check and it disabled all the settings in the mode they were in. Changed the secure boot check back to enabled and they were unlocked again. Hope this helps. After you unlock the settings you can add another UEFI file as trusted so it will boot from it. Worked for me. Booted a MSDaRT (Microsoft Diagnostics And Recovery Toolset) disk from USB.

 

[Unklerupert]

Same issue here, wiped the recovery partition and rebooted to be greeted with

Recovery

Your PC needs to be repaired.

Press the Windows key for EUFI Formware Settings

Pressing the Windows key on the Switch 10 kb does nothing.

I've purchased recovery media from Acer (handily they supply this on CDs, not USB stick or even the option to download). I dumped all CDs onto a USB stick and when pressing F2 I've set the recovery bootmgr.efi, saved and exited and upon restart the Switch 10 just jumps straight back to the initial "Your PC needs to be repaired.' Seems it is completely ignoring what I've set in Acer setup utility access by pressing F2 on boot. Hair is being pulled and at the moment I think the only option is to send to Acer.

Recovery media cost around £51, full Acer recovery (ie sending back to their repair centre) £76.

 

[AllenLee1]

Go to your BIOS, turn off UEFI and change to legacy boot. You can then boot to whatever you want, format the hard drive and install Linux.

Windows 8 is a pain in the ass.

is their another link for this sir sorry bout being late on this but it just happened to me , and one more question when i download the link can i save it to a flash drive and put the flash in the acer ?

 

[Ronshere]

You can use the latest versions of PCLinuxos on it. PCLinuxOS features UEFI compatibility and it is available with the newest MATE or CINNAMON desktops.
I have successfully installed the MATE versions on several tablets and it run beautifully. also it readily sets up the WIFI and all audio for you during the installation so you will not have any trouble logging in to your WIFI. It also can be installed alongside Windows. You can easily download PCLinuxOS and use Unetbootin to burn it to a USB flashdrive to either install it to your tablet or boot to the flash drive just to run PCLinuxOS and check it out to see how it works and looks.
So you do not have to change anything in the BIOS to use it.

 

[wanisma]

So, I deleted my recovery partition to try to reclaim some of the tiny hard drive on this thing, without reading into it (Stupid, I know) and I ended up bricking the windows install. So I thought, "Oh well, who cares I'll install linux.", and I followed one of the guides.

Now, here comes the problem. When I deleted the recovery partition, windows booted to a blue screen saying I needed to repair my computer, not a big deal right? Just boot linux and move on. Well, not really, because even if I select my USB disk in the boot menu, windows overrides that and just dumps me back at that recovery screen over and over again no matter what I do. I've tried turning secureboot on and off, wiping secure boots settings, changing boot orders, using the f12 menu. Nothing.

Does anyone have any ideas on how I can get this to at the very least get to the grub splash screen, I'm dead set on getting some form of linux to work on this as I dont want to pay Acer for repairs.

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: I forgot to add switch to the name. Whoops.

 

[wanisma]

So, I deleted my recovery partition to try to reclaim some of the tiny hard drive on this thing, without reading into it (Stupid, I know) and I ended up bricking the windows install. So I thought, "Oh well, who cares I'll install linux.", and I followed one of the guides.

Now, here comes the problem. When I deleted the recovery partition, windows booted to a blue screen saying I needed to repair my computer, not a big deal right? Just boot linux and move on. Well, not really, because even if I select my USB disk in the boot menu, windows overrides that and just dumps me back at that recovery screen over and over again no matter what I do. I've tried turning secureboot on and off, wiping secure boots settings, changing boot orders, using the f12 menu. Nothing.

Does anyone have any ideas on how I can get this to at the very least get to the grub splash screen, I'm dead set on getting some form of linux to work on this as I dont want to pay Acer for repairs.

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: I forgot to add switch to the name. Whoops.

 

[kaptdeath]

I know this thread is old, but I am posting this here in the hope that it helps someone else. I had a similar situation with my Switch 10. My Switch 10 stopped accepting windows updates a few months ago. I tried every guide I could find to fix the "windows 8.1 stuck checking for updates" problem, including reinstalling 8.1 2X to no avail. Finally I decided to try switching to Linux to see if that might work better. In the process of monkeying around with the BIOS to get the new OS installed I happened to turn off FTPM support. (I can also confirm that the switch 10 uses a 32bit UEFI as my 64bit version would not work at all ) In the process of multiple reboots I noticed that 8.1 was trying to update. Yay, I let 8.1 update. During one of the subsequent reboots I turned FTPM support back on. Whoa, back to "stuck checking for updates" again. I turned it off, and update began to work again. There are dozens of fixes for "stuck checking for update" on the web. I never saw this one, and it worked for me. Good luck.