Stuck in boot loop

[Eqwips]

Hi, I have a problem with my sister's Acer Ferrari 200. Here's the problem, when I press the power button, the laptop wont go to the BIOS screen. Its just black then after like 3-5 seconds it restarts then the same thing repeating over and over. I tried to remove the RAMs and use another RAM but at that time the screen just black and wont restart. Please help me. The problem occured after the laptop shut down unexpectedly.

 

[JennBerry]

Depending on what you have sometimes there is a default key to get strait to bios or safe mode. I remember having to mash F4 repeatedly to get into it. Try looking up or in manual.
Otherwise might have to try another HDD, it maybe corruped

 

[Eqwips]

I can't even go to BIOS. The screen don't show anything after I pressed the power button. And I don't have another 2.5" HDD to try.

 

[Eqwips]

Still need help with this. 🙁

 

[Lleuadwen]

I have exactly the same problem with an Acer Aspire laptop. This starter after I replaced the screen (for the second time - teenagers eh?). I know it's been dropped and the fan was overheating but cleaned this out and is working fine. I have tried:

1) Rotating the RAM sticks
2) Tried with one RAM stick removed, then the other
3) Tried without the HDD
4) Tried leaving the MB battery out overnight

Nothing worked!!

If you have since found out how to fix this I would really love to know.
Thanks

 

[haceaton]

I've had the same issue and I've solved it. Firstly, in my case and I expect in most cases there is absolutely nothing wrong with the hardware. Some data on the disc drive is corrupted and the BIOS has a bug where if it sees the wrong thing, it just restarts no matter what. I discovered this by determining that if the hard disc was removed from the laptop, it not longer had the looping problem. I found that I was able to read the disc (with no sector errors, but the NTFS file system was corrupted). I made a direct image copy of the disc to a brand new solid-state disc on another machine. When that new disc was installed in the laptop, the boot loop returned. Since this was a brand new disc, and it didn't cause the boot loop until after I re-imaged it from the old drive, it proves that it's related to the data on the drive.

I later discovered that simply editing the partition table to remove the "bootable" flag from the boot partition (of course done on a different machine) allowed it to be installed in the laptop without having the boot loop problem. From there I used my rescue disk image to restore the disc and all was well. I then performed the same procedure with the original hard drive, and it too resumed working with no issues at all.

Acer has a major bug in their BIOS even in the latest version available. Even changing the BIOS boot order to not even include the internal hard disc in the boot order list (the bios change had to be done with the disc removed) did not stop the boot loop, but altering the disc partition table to clear the boot flag did prevent the boot loop. This is absolute proof that the BIOS is choosing to restart the system before entering the BIOS setup just because of some data that it reads from the hard disc during POST.

 

[esaarnio]

Acer has a major bug in their BIOS even in the latest version available. Even changing the BIOS boot order to not even include the internal hard disc in the boot order list (the bios change had to be done with the disc removed) did not stop the boot loop, but altering the disc partition table to clear the boot flag did prevent the boot loop. This is absolute proof that the BIOS is choosing to restart the system before entering the BIOS setup just because of some data that it reads from the hard disc during POST.

I got my hands on Acer Aspire 5520 with Vista Home (as found out later) and stuck in same kind of boot loop. I removed HD & RAM, no change, tried all kind of key combinations, no change, left it for about 15 minutes booting itself and suddenly BIOS setup screen appeared ?!?! Reseated RAM, changed boot order to USB, HD. Booted with Ubuntu, all fine. I put HD back and it booted to Vista, many times. Then, just before I was going to rescue users data to USB stick I got careless and spend to much time in Internet and Vista went to sleep and shut down the laptop. After that I was again in boot loop!

So I suspect Vista messed up something in bios setting. Now I can't repeat what happened the first time. Some are saying reflowing helps but that sounds too radical if it is only BIOS problem.

 

[haceaton]

...I removed HD & RAM, no change, tried all kind of key combinations, no change, left it for about 15 minutes booting itself and suddenly BIOS setup screen appeared ?!?! Reseated RAM, changed boot order to USB, HD. Booted with Ubuntu, all fine. I put HD back and it booted to Vista, many times. Then, just before I was going to rescue users data to USB stick I got careless and spend to much time in Internet and Vista went to sleep and shut down the laptop. After that I was again in boot loop!

You say you reseated RAM, but hopefully you did that with the power off; In my case it's never been necessary to remove the RAM, only remove the hard drive. So long as the hard drive is removed, I can boot from external USB devices. In order to "fix" my system, I have to use an external USB drive adapter to clear the boot flag on my disc (using a linux boot USB stick). Then I power down and put the disk back in, and restore the entire 2nd partition (the one with the boot flag, but it is NOT the windows C: drive thankfully). It seems every time windows update runs, at the next reboot the problem returns and my solution fixes it every time. It's annoying because I have to remove the hard disk every time it happens.

One again, in my case, if the HD is removed I am always able to get into the F2 BIOS menu, but never able to when the (corrupted) HD is installed. If you can't get to the BIOS even with the HD removed (I'd definitely leave the RAM in) then you have some other (possibly hardware) problem.

 

[peter_leonard_lee]

Hi. I had the same problem after installing Linux Mint on a partition on my hard drive, other partition being Windows 10. After much trial and error and frustration, I finally solved it by setting, under Security in the Bios, a Supervisor Password so I could access the option to Select an UEFI file as trusted for executing, where I entered my Ubuntu boot file and then my Windows boot file (it appears to take the most recently entered as the first priority). The Windows boot file was that one in the boot directory (not in the Windows directory). I also activated the F12 key on the Main menu in the Bios, so I can choose to use Linux when I want, by (repeatedly) pressing F12 when I start up. And I've found that the Boot priority order appears to be ignored - maybe. I set USB as number 1 while I was having issues, followed by HDD, but the USB boot stick didn't work - went straight to Windows instead. Anyway, it's working as I want it now. Good luck.

 

[malutanpetronel]

You are perfectly right ! it happened to me today
2 windows hdd both are bootable with different os server 2012 and w 10. Each works separately. Also it works each of them with an extra SSD inserted with Ubuntu, but together, the 2 windows machine refuses to boot and get into a loop as you described. I did upgraded the BIOS on my k95vj from 225 to 234 but ASUS tech was not very curios when entered an hour before in the chat. He mentioned to send laptop to them 😉 Sad

I've had the same issue and I've solved it. Firstly, in my case and I expect in most cases there is absolutely nothing wrong with the hardware. Some data on the disc drive is corrupted and the BIOS has a bug where if it sees the wrong thing, it just restarts no matter what. I discovered this by determining that if the hard disc was removed from the laptop, it not longer had the looping problem. I found that I was able to read the disc (with no sector errors, but the NTFS file system was corrupted). I made a direct image copy of the disc to a brand new solid-state disc on another machine. When that new disc was installed in the laptop, the boot loop returned. Since this was a brand new disc, and it didn't cause the boot loop until after I re-imaged it from the old drive, it proves that it's related to the data on the drive.

I later discovered that simply editing the partition table to remove the "bootable" flag from the boot partition (of course done on a different machine) allowed it to be installed in the laptop without having the boot loop problem. From there I used my rescue disk image to restore the disc and all was well. I then performed the same procedure with the original hard drive, and it too resumed working with no issues at all.

Acer has a major bug in their BIOS even in the latest version available. Even changing the BIOS boot order to not even include the internal hard disc in the boot order list (the bios change had to be done with the disc removed) did not stop the boot loop, but altering the disc partition table to clear the boot flag did prevent the boot loop. This is absolute proof that the BIOS is choosing to restart the system before entering the BIOS setup just because of some data that it reads from the hard disc during POST.