Hello, new user here. Today I got a new Acer Predator Helios 300 and wanted to put endeavorOS on it. Initially after making bootable USB, I couldn’t install as the live distro couldn’t partition my drive, only the USB itself was visible. I then turned off secure boot in the BIOS and then everything worked fine and I installed endeavorOS, I chose the default boot loader option if that matters. Once it was installed, I couldn’t log in, it told me I had the wrong password. This is weird, because I used the same password I always use, and it would be really unlikely that I accidentally made the same exact typo twice when setting the password. Anyways, I’m locked out and have no access to the OS, and when I did the installation, I wiped windows so there is no accessible OS on this computer.
I thought this would be a minor setback and that I’d just re-install but found that I couldn’t boot off of my USB anymore. If I hit F2 to go to the BIOS, I just get a black screen with a prompt in top left but can’t enter anything and the PC is stuck here till I reboot. If I let it get to the boot loader and select ‘reboot into firmware interface’ the same thing happens.
So, I can’t access the only OS on the PC, I can’t get to my BIOS and I can’t boot off a USB. I’m at a loss at this point at what else I can do/try and any help is appreciated.
These sound like a bunch of “unlikelies” and impossibles.
Be patient, one of our experts will assist you soon enough. This is beyond my know-how, but just wanted to let you know that your post has been seen, so don’t go doing anything drastic. Just wait a bit.
Welcome to the community (when it’s all fixed, of course)
Well, for whatever reason, I have no idea why, but I can access my BIOS again. I was showing someone else my issue, and for whatever reason this time when I selected ‘reboot into firmware interface’ from the boot menu it rebooted in the bios. I set up F12 to get to boot options on startup and can boot off the USB again. At this point would it be more advisable to try and reset the password on the currently installed OS from the live distro on the USB (is this even possible?) or just reinstalling all over again?
Sorry for a weird post, can’t say I really understand what’s been happening.
There is this thing called a “TTY”, I’ve never really learned how to bring it up or use it because I’ve never needed to. Someone with the knowledge will tell you to access this and change your password instead of reinstalling.
Did some reading. Looks like CTRL+ALT+F1. Will try it out myself.
EDIT: It could be any of the other F keys… F1 to F12.
Forgetting your user password is not that big of a deal. You can try changing the password as root user from the TTY. If that doesn’t work you can always chroot.
Well, when I initially installed it, there was a setting to have root password be the same as for the main user account I made, so I couldn’t log in as root either. I was able to figure out how to change it with chroot from live USB distro. I guess the issue was mostly resolved once I was able to get back to my BIOS and boot off of USB again. Thanks for the help though!
You are right, this happens not very often. Maybe there where different keyboard-layouts when installing the system and after booting into your new system.
The most happen issue is that keymap is not well detected for your language.. using Italian ? @lameux
What Language and keyboard you choose on install?
By any chance you may use encryption?
