I just bought an Asus P50IJ-X3 NoteBook which came with Win7 pre-installed. On booting it up, it is taking me through a Win7 setup routine and won't let me get to the BIOS so that I can run my Ubuntu installation disk. It won't accept CTRL-ALT-Delete with the installation disk in the drive either.

Is there any way to get to the BIOS so that I can change the boot order and install Ubuntu WITHOUT setting up WIN7? At this point, I havn't done anything with the machine so aside from return shipping and the re-stocking fee, I should be able to return it.

I'm afraid that if I go through the whole setup routine and write stuff to the disk, the vendor (Newegg) may not be willing to take it back.

Thanks for any information that you can provide.

If you're seeing Win7 (or any other OS), you're already past the BIOS. Since CTRL-ALT-DEL is a system 'hotkey' to do a soft boot (and since your system OS isn't RUNNING yet), that won't work. Pull the plug, hold down the power switch, etc., to get the thing to turn off. When the system is booting, you're going to have to hit a key to get into the BIOS menu to change anything...check your user manual. Usually it's F1 or F2.

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Hi,

I had/have 2 Asus boards.

- My old Asus laptop used the Ins key to get into the BIOS,
- Current Asus P6T board uses the Del key.

Hope this helps.

1 members found this post helpful.

No POST...

On a new laptop like this you may well not see a POST splash screen, but only a splash screen with an Asus name or logo. Look for notice of what key to press to open a menu to get to Setup, one-time-boot, etc.

If the splash screen is present only a few seconds, try pushing the "Pause" key to see if you can freeze it. On HP notebooks, there is a mention of "Esc" on the lower left, that is, the "Esc" key is the one to press.

If the screen delay is set to "0" in the BIOS, the splash screen flicks on and goes right to the Windows splash. You have to be quick.

However, you can kill the Windows Setup sequence without doing any damage to Windows or anything else, and make several tries until you find out how to get into BIOS Setup.

I downloaded a copy of the Manual, in French, and there was absolutely nothing about Setup or the BIOS. I sympathize and hope that the machine is better than its documentation.

1 members found this post helpful.

Found this...

At the Asus splash screen, press "Alt"+"F2", one of the many variants for Asus, maybe the right one for yours. There were several mentions of "F2" for the BIOS and of "Esc" to enter the one-time-boot menu, all during the Asus splash, all requiring quick fingers.

1 members found this post helpful.

Thank you TBOne, druuna, and thorkelljarl for the help. I collected your suggestions and have saved them for future reference.

The second attempt worked (hitting F2), F1 tells you that Windows did not exit gracefully and gives you a choice of ways to restart such as Safe Boot.

Ubuntu is now installed and I'm in the process of setting up the additional packages that I want.

So, thank you all again for the help.

Regards,
Linux31

Give yourself more time...

Now that you can get into the BIOS, you might profit by setting the Boot Delay to 5(seconds) instead of 0.

Well done, and now for the good part.

http://linuxcommand.org/

At some time you are going to need commands.

Ah, yes. Shell commands.

Actually, that is on my list of projects.