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So I made some mess in the machine. I want to reinstall everything from 0. I'm running Ubuntu. I have the bootable USB with the last distro of ubuntu aswell.

While it is recognised by the system and the USB and port works well, I can't enter the UEFI/BIOS screen, and when booting the pc it doesn't give me the option to start from the usb anyways

How can I reinstall it? Is it possible to for example run it during the session without rebooting ,or maybe from the terminal or some other way?

As a last option, is there anyway to set the key combination to enter the UEFI/BIOS screen? I tried everything. It may be that i'm not hitting the right key(doubt it), but to be sure, is there any way to set for example that at booting time the , say, letter "D" sends me to the screen?

thanks

learn123456
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    The BIOS key is usually vendor/motherboard specific, and has nothing to do with the OS installed. If you don't know what it is, consult the manual. – mikewhatever Dec 03 '20 at 22:53
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    Your post is a bit hard to follow. Did you lock yourself out of the BIOS? What's preventing you from installing it the same way you installed it last time? – KGIII Dec 03 '20 at 22:54
  • If grub is showing up when booting, should have something like system settings at bottom of choices that will go to bios/uefi. Can also just google make and model for bios key. After that just set bios to boot USB stick first reinstall Ubuntu without formating to maybe save data, can format if no data to be save. – crip659 Dec 03 '20 at 23:12
  • please avoid vague terms like "last distro of ubuntu". Ubuntu comes in many forms, with various releases including re-spins of older releases, plus any single release comes with multiple ISO choices that allow you different install options. Please be specific (last release was 20.10 or 2020-October release; last before that was 16.04.7, 18.04.5 back a week further was 20.04.1... be specific as many users on this site only count LTS releases which was 4 actual releases ago, 2 if you ignore ISO re-spin releases..) Currently there are 4 installer options (across all current releases..) – guiverc Dec 03 '20 at 23:28
  • There is a duplicate link I can't find, with a list of common keys for different makes & model laptops. The key is hardware specific as @mikewhatever already said; I've got one box that requires the key to be held down with the box OFF for uEFI/BIOS entry... (the box turns itself on when key is held..), ie. it's machine specific – guiverc Dec 03 '20 at 23:39
  • If GRUB is working on the computer, you can use it to boot the Ubuntu ISO toram and use that to reinstall Ubuntu. No USB necessary See: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1251729/20-04-booting-iso-from-grub-menu/1251782#1251782 – C.S.Cameron Dec 04 '20 at 05:12
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    Does this answer your question? Forgot BIOS supervisor password on an Acer Aspire laptop – karel Dec 04 '20 at 09:06
  • Is UEFI fast boot on? You also should be able to boot into UEFI from grub menu or systemctl. See: https://askubuntu.com/questions/652966/unable-to-access-bios-menu-after-installing-windows-8/653006 – oldfred Dec 04 '20 at 15:40
  • @guiverc doesn't make much difference. question was posted(yesterday) when the last distro of ubuntu is 20.10 and 20.04 lts, both come in 64bit, so of course considering the date and the last releases, it's going to be either of those. Still it doesn't change, because I was refering to the one in the usb that I'm trying to install. No need for specification here, as it's redundant either way – learn123456 Dec 05 '20 at 15:23
  • @crip659 in the grub menu there's only the option to boot ubuntu either normally or in recovery mode, that's all – learn123456 Dec 05 '20 at 15:24
  • @mikewhatever don't have the manual, neither i know the model of the computer. – learn123456 Dec 05 '20 at 15:25
  • @KGIII that the bios is not showing up, even after pressing the keys that would direct me to it when rebooting. I used to have Mac OS installed, it worked the first time, now that it's ubuntu, seems like it doesn't work the same way – learn123456 Dec 05 '20 at 15:27
  • @oldfred just tried that, but it says cannot reboot to EFI, operation not supported. No idea why – learn123456 Dec 05 '20 at 16:02
  • If fast boot is on in UEFI, it assumes no system change and tries to boot an old configuration. You can try "cold" boot or full power down. Cold boot to get into UEFI or BIOS, remove battery or fwsetup http://askubuntu.com/questions/652966/unable-to-access-bios-menu-after-installing-windows-8/653006#653006 & https://askubuntu.com/questions/652966/unable-to-access-bios-menu-after-installing-windows-8 – oldfred Dec 05 '20 at 17:16
  • @learn123456 32bit is still available for armv7, but yes you could be talking about arm64, ppc64el etc or even amd64 - rather than make assumptions it's best if we're told. uEFI does imply amd64 but assumptions lead to errors or misinformation. – guiverc Dec 05 '20 at 21:06

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