Lenovo B575 laptop bios issue

[slimyrock]

So I have this old laptop, Lenovo B575 with an AMD processor, barely worked on the windows install. So i thought I'd rejuvenate it with a linux install and give it away.

Installed linux mint KDE no problems. Won't boot, go into that bios when it's looping and says hard drive is frozen. I select the hard drive, say boot from here, bypasses it and goes to the next bootable eventually ending up on boot from network, loops from there.

The bios is incredibly basic, almost no options. No secure boot settings, or anything like that.

Any help to get this up and running with Linux Mint?

 

[mbarnes86]

Hi

I suggest booting from a seagate diagnostic cd to test the hard disk has not died

Download the iso from seagate website and burn iso to a cd or dvd
Dont worry if hard disk is a different brand from Seagate

Check the hard disk is working correctly
Disk is frozen message is worrying and indicades a fault of some sort

Some Toshiba laptops have a function key which presses just after bios message appears lets you select boot disk:- dvd, hdd, pxe or usb etc
Occasionaly includes hardware diagnostics option

Regards
Mike Barnes

 

[slimyrock]

I will try that, but here's the thing I didn't mention, I've tried 2 hard drives with the same result, so I'm thinking it's something embedded in their craps bios that I can't change.

 

[mbarnes86]

Hi

Reseting cmos is usually difficult on laptops.
Especially if cmos battery soldered to motherboard
Look at service manual if you can find it to see if it is possible

If not is there a reset bios defaults option


Regards

Mike Barnes

 

[slimyrock]

The bios is so basic there's only like 4 options you can change, legacy USB, default settings, SATA to ACHI or compatible, and one or two others that I can't remember off hand. I'll look into the CMOS when I get home though.

 

[slimyrock]

So disconnected the CMOS battery for about 15 to 20 minutes. Still nothing. I tried to install about 3 or 4 different distros of linux, each gives a boot error. Looked into the UEFI on laptops and a lot of the firmware for them looks for windows only certification or it won't boot. Ubuntu supposedly has a windows signature on their EFI boot, still a no go.