Acer Aspire E15 Win8.1 Install

V1va · Feb 20, 2015

Hey guys, i'm having a few issues installing a fresh Win8.1 to my aspire e15.
I know the system comes with Acer's recovery partition etc. BUT... what i want to avoid is installing all that Acer bloatware i have a Win8.1 x64 iso with a digitally purchased key that i would rather install than deal with all the extra's.

I have tried previously but failed and i'm looking at swapping out my 1tb into an enclosure and using an SSD for my OS so i'm going to have to deal with this at some point.

As far as im aware my BIOS does not support booting from anything other than the system HDD.

So does anyone know a way around this?
Any help is greatly appreciated, even if it's a simple No.

KYHI · Feb 20, 2015

No your system should be able to boot via DVD/USB

Create your windows 8.1 setup media > Create installation media for Windows 8.1 - Windows Help

Either USB
or
ISO - right click ISO and select burn to DVD

Insert media

Right Charm -> Change PC Settings -> Update and Recovery -> Recovery -> Advanced Startup ->
Restart Now -> Use a Device - select your media type

Before all that I would Highly Suggest you create Acer factory recovery media - just in case..

V1va · Feb 20, 2015

It most definitely does not boot from usb or dvd, when I boot into bios and goto boot settings the only option it will give me is HDD (system)

I have made sure I have both drivers and apps media and system restore media discs.

I have burned a win8 ISO and made a bootable stick and neither works when I choose to boot from preboot menu. I know both of them work as my desktop boots into both of them.

David Bailey · Feb 20, 2015

Does your iso have a setup.exe file in it ?

V1va · Feb 20, 2015

I'm at work at the moment so I'm not 100% sure but it must have somewhere cause autorun will still launch the in windows installer.

As mentioned this has worked on my desktop as boot installer and has been used to install win8.1 on 3 different machines.

KYHI · Feb 20, 2015

is your laptop 32 bit? and your software 64bit?

also try this option

Right Charm -> Change PC Settings -> Update and Recovery -> Recovery -> Advanced Startup ->
Restart Now -> Use a Device

V1va · Feb 20, 2015

KYHI said:
is your laptop 32 bit? and your software 64bit?

Thats a good point i'll check again, although im pretty certain it already has win8.1 x64 on it currently.
The main issue is getting it to boot from anything other than system HDD will take a snap on my phone after work of the bios.

KYHI said:
also try this option

Right Charm -> Change PC Settings -> Update and Recovery -> Recovery -> Advanced Startup ->
Restart Now -> Use a Device

Tried that, just throws me straight back into windows.

cd5tuner · Feb 20, 2015

im almost in the same boat as you buddy...I want to fresh install 8.1 on my Acer E1-510 but the bios detects the bootable thumb drive in usb mode and not uefi...so all it does is boot the hddOS which in my case has errors! Im starting to think this win8.1 Usb Uefi boot thing is only related to late model acers with the Insydeh2o BIOS :/

KYHI · Feb 20, 2015

insert your usb media..

Right Charm -> Change PC Settings -> Update and Recovery -> Recovery -> Advanced Startup ->
Restart Now -> Use a Device

try that twice..
As I too have an issue sometimes getting the BCD to detect the USB boot device the first time..

I insert the usb, select boot usb, pc reboots back into windows, go back to devices and now uefi usb boot is there

alphanumeric · Feb 20, 2015

I've seen a couple of similar threads, Acer laptops and trouble booting from USB thumb drives. I had a similar issue when I put an SSD in my wife's Aspire V5. It took me a couple of attempts to get it to actually boot from a thumb drive. As near as I can remember the drive I finally got to work I created via diskpart. Option 2 here, http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/15458-uefi-bootable-usb-flash-drive-create-windows.html. Even then, it did not show the UEFI option in the boot menu, there was only the one entry for the thumb drive. Windows 8.1 did install in UEFI mode though.

KYHI · Feb 21, 2015

boot issue seem to be the same between Acer and Lenovo.. They just seem very difficult to boot from USB/DVD

alphanumeric · Feb 21, 2015

I could have sworn I posted to this thread in reply to your last post? Anyway, maybe it has to do with the BIOS manufacturer? My ASUS shows Aptio Setup Utility, American Megatrends. The Acer shows InsydeH20 Setup Utility, what ever that is? That's all it says? I had a handsome frog of a time getting into the Acers BIOS. I noticed the boot to UEFI option is MIA in Windows 8.1's advanced boot options. But it does have the EFI partition? Not sure what to make of that? I'm liking the Acer less and less, don't think I'll ever buy another one. I had to kill hibernation and turn off fast startup to get into the BIOS. I had thought I had already killed hibernation but when I finally checked the power options I realized I hadn't. That caused me a few reboots and some frustration.

V1va · Apr 16, 2015

Sorry for digging this thread out again.

In the end i gave up, my goal was to do a fresh install on the same HDD but now im looking at upgrading to a SSD the issue i think im going to face is being able to boot from anything other than the system HDD.

As mentioned in earlier post it simply does not give me the option to boot from anything else, so what im wondering is if i put an SSD in will changing it from uefi boot to legacy allow me to boot from other devices and also will that affect anything not having uefi enabled?

alphanumeric · Apr 16, 2015

All I can tell you is it should be possible to boot to an external device with no OS installed. That's how you install an OS. I did the SSD swap on my wife's Acer and did a clean install of Windows 8. It was fussy for how the thumb drive was created though. I used the diskpart method and it booted from it OK. Any other way and the thumb drive didn't show up as a boot option.

Maltesespace · Apr 16, 2015

OK

I had this issue with my Gigabyte motherboard a while back. Wouldnt boot from anything but the system disk.

What you need to do is boot into your UEFI firmware, and turn OFF Secure boot and any form of "Fast boot".

Then you need to go into boot device order, and Disable all but Option 1. Then change Option 1 to your USB.

THen save changes and reset. You should be booted into your USB. No need to fiddle with the UEFI firmware anymore as (in my case) it re-adds the Windows Boot manager to the boot options right after you boot from USB.

The USBs I used (tested multiple) were create with the diskpart method

Command prompt (Admin)
diskpart
list disk
select disk [x] (x being your USB disk)
clean
create partition primary
format fs=fat32 quick
active
exit

Use WinRAR to extract Win8.1 ISO to the USB.

Cheers

alphanumeric · Apr 16, 2015

Maltesespace said:
OK

I had this issue with my Gigabyte motherboard a while back. Wouldnt boot from anything but the system disk.

What you need to do is boot into your UEFI firmware, and turn OFF Secure boot and any form of "Fast boot".

Then you need to go into boot device order, and Disable all but Option 1. Then change Option 1 to your USB.

THen save changes and reset. You should be booted into your USB. No need to fiddle with the UEFI firmware anymore as (in my case) it re-adds the Windows Boot manager to the boot options right after you boot from USB.

The USBs I used (tested multiple) were create with the diskpart method

Command prompt (Admin)
diskpart
list disk
select disk [x] (x being your USB disk)
clean
create partition primary
format fs=fat32 quick
active
exit

Use WinRAR to extract Win8.1 ISO to the USB.

Cheers

That's the way I do my install thumb drives with diskpart. If your on a Windows 8 PC you don't need to mess with WinRAR. Just mount the ISO and then copy all the files over to the thumb drive.

alphanumeric · Apr 16, 2015

It looks like some PC's/BIOS are fussy as to how you install Windows 8. I haven't had to disable secure boot to install Windows 8 or 8.1. If your trying to boot from a Linux disk or other similar media its almost guarantied you'll have to turn secure boot off.

Maltesespace · Apr 16, 2015

alphanumeric said:
It looks like some PC's/BIOS are fussy as to how you install Windows 8. I haven't had to disable secure boot to install Windows 8 or 8.1. If your trying to boot from a Linux disk or other similar media its almost guarantied you'll have to turn secure boot off.

Yeah i just did it on mine as an extra thing not to rule out. I don't like secure boot anyway, so I leave it off. But if you really want it, when you're done installing, you can always turn it back on. Having it off just makes it easier to install other OSs on a frequent basis if need be.

Acer Aspire E15 Win8.1 Install

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