Grub and BIOS problem
 

I have decent experience working with Ubuntu and windows together. I recently decided to try a new flavor of Linux and uninstalled Ubuntu. I hated it and reformatted the partition. To easily uninstall Ubuntu (if I ever needed to) I used wubi to install it. I walked away from the computer as it was doing its thing, I came back and it was shutdown. Normal for power conservative windows 8. After trying to boot today, I got a
I looked up how to solve the problem, I tried looking for my (hopefully) installed Ubuntu partition and couldn't find anything. I tinkered for a while and found little success. So, being kinda tired of the dual boot and windows, I decided to wipe everything and install Ubuntu and figured it would fix grub. I restarted my computer (Lenovo G560) and the bios screen didn't offer any boot options like it had yesterday. I tried every key combination and pattern I could find on the web. Still got the grub error page. I tried just plugging various bootable USBs and CDs that worked before when I had access to the boot menu. No luck. I pulled my hard drive out and used an adapter to plug it into another windows computer and used EasyBCD to fix the MBR, no luck there.
My question is how to either access the BIOS boot menu, fix grub, or wipe and install Ubuntu via my other computer onto the hdd.

In your original Ubuntu/windows setup, did you have Ubuntu installed with wubi, as a program inside windows? I ask that because you say you 'uninstalled' Ubuntu which you could do with wubi as it is a program inside windows. A standard install would be on a separate partition and you could not 'uninstall' it but rather format its partition.

When you installed your 'new flavor' of Linux, did you install it to its own partition? Did you install its bootloader to the mbr of the drive? Do you have a pre-installed windows 8? Do you have Secure Boot on the computer?

How did you try looking for your installed Ubuntu? The F12 key should give you access to the BIOS per the Lenovo site. If you are getting to a Grub error, you are getting to the hard drive. You need to check your BIOS options.

No, I did not use wubi for my first install. I simply used a separate partition and then reformatted it for the new flavor (Zorin). I installed its bootloader (I think Grub). I personally upgraded from windows 7 to 8 so there is no secure boot. To look for Ubuntu I used the "ls" command and then tried to "ls" each partition listed and had no luck finding a Linux partition. Part of my problem is the fact that I have no options for anything on the BIOS screen. I used to press F12 and the settings would come up, but now it doesn't work.

I figured it out!
After further experimentation with different setups, I eventually found a loop hole. I took out the whole hard drive. I then popped UBCD (Ultimate boot cd) and was able to boot off of that. I used a live linux distro built into the cd to copy my files to a flash drive, then I formatted the entire drive. I rebooted the computer and my BIOS was back to normal, so I could choose to boot from disc instead of hdd. I used an Ubuntu DVD to install Ubuntu and all is well!