Acer Aspire 3 boot issues - help needed!

Just grabbed a new laptop and did a clean Windows install via USB.
The one thing I totally blanked on was changing the boot order so it hits the drive instead of the thumb drive. Now I can't even get back into the boot menu—every time I power up and mash F12 (or fn + F11), nothing happens and the machine just boots straight into Windows.
It’s driving me crazy because I can hear the drive constantly trying to load stuff.

How the hell do I get into that menu? 🕺

Maybe try messing with the boot settings in your BIOS, or you could probably just hit F8... honestly, your best bet is to just dig through the laptop's manual.

Hit F2 to enter the BIOS, head over to the Boot menu, and select your HDD/SSD as the primary drive
Save your changes and you’re all set.

Following along

Finally got into the boot menu, and I've just got two choices: Windows Boot Manager and Endless OS.

The first one boots straight into Windows, but when I pick EO, I just get a black screen with a bunch of command lines.

Everything seems to work, but the laptop keeps making this weird noise every 30 seconds—like a CD drive spinning up, even though this thing doesn't even have a disc drive built-in.

No clue what the deal is.

I picked up a new laptop last week that came with Linux on it, so I wiped it and installed Windows from a USB (legit Windows 10 Pro).

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I guess you didn't clear out all those partitions or the old OS when you were installing Windows.

That noise you're hearing might just be the hard drive—assuming it's an old-school HDD and not an SSD—or maybe the fans are just spinning up fast at startup before the laptop throttles them down...

fadedorca66 said:I guess you didn't clear out all those partitions or the old OS when you were installing Windows.

That noise you're hearing might just be the hard drive—assuming it's an old-school HDD and not an SSD—or maybe the fans are just spinning up fast at startup before the laptop throttles them down...

Thanks for the reply.
Can I just delete it now?

It's weird that I didn't hear this back when I was running Linux.

I've got this laptop: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/example-laptop-link

Honestly, the easiest move is just to do a fresh install. But here’s the trick: when you hit that screen asking which partition you want to use, don't just settle for the default. Instead, use the Delete button to wipe out every single existing partition. If I remember correctly, Linux usually creates at least two—root and swap—so you want to clear those out until you're left with nothing but one big chunk of unallocated space, then select that.
The whole idea is to scrub everything related to Linux off the drive. If you aren't planning on using it anyway, why let it hang around? If you wipe it completely, it won't even show up as an option in your boot manager.
Here's the deal: Linux is actually pretty polite; it recognizes other operating systems and "respects" them (meaning it knows how to work alongside them). Windows, on the other hand, is a bit more selfish—it mostly just cares about itself. Since Linux was around first with its own boot manager, it basically took over the driver's seat. By deleting those partitions, you're clearing the slate so you can have a totally clean start with Windows...
If you've got a digital Windows license, it should automatically activate once the installation is finished (just double-check that, though...).

Michael Jackson10 said:Honestly, the easiest move is just to do a fresh install. But here’s the trick: when you hit that screen asking which partition you want to use, don't just settle for the default. Instead, use the Delete button to wipe out every single existing partition. If I remember correctly, Linux usually creates at least two—root and swap—so you want to clear those out until you're left with nothing but one big chunk of unallocated space, then select that.
The whole idea is to scrub everything related to Linux off the drive. If you aren't planning on using it anyway, why let it hang around? If you wipe it completely, it won't even show up as an option in your boot manager.
Here's the deal: Linux is actually pretty polite; it recognizes other operating systems and "respects" them (meaning it knows how to work alongside them). Windows, on the other hand, is a bit more selfish—it mostly just cares about itself. Since Linux was around first with its own boot manager, it basically took over the driver's seat. By deleting those partitions, you're clearing the slate so you can have a totally clean start with Windows...
If you've got a digital Windows license, it should automatically activate once the installation is finished (just double-check that, though...).

I'm gonna give that a shot. My license is digital, I just have the product key to punch in. Fingers crossed it actually works. 🙂