[SOLVED] Aspire ES-14 installation issues

[NJW]

Hello,

I have a new Acer Aspire ES-14 (ES1-431), which came with Win10 x64 plus 50-odd pieces of bloatware. After the client had already run through the OOBE and set everything up, he was p'ed off with all the junk and asked me to install a clean copy of Windows 10.

This machine is the lowest of the low and has no optical drive, nor HDD activity light (why do they do that?), single core Celeron and 2 GB RAM. I don't need anyone telling me that I shouldn't be wasting my time on toy laptops. Frankly, I took it on because I need the Windows 10 exposure.

I have a freshly minted .iso from Microsoft and a bootable USB (.iso > Rufus > UEFI USB). Both will boot this machine in UEFI mode and both have previously been used for successful Windows 10 installs.

During installation, errors occur at the first reboot, slightly different, depending on install medium:

• DVD install: "Windows setup could not configure windows to run on this computer's hardware."

• USB install: "Windows could not update the computer's boot configuration."

Windows Startup Repair cannot repair. I can Shift-F10 into a shell window when the error message is showing and I have tried a BCD repair and starting the OOBE (Google's suggestions), neither of which resolve the problem.

Restarting the machine starts a continual reboot loop.

The current BIOS/UEFI is newer (v1.07) than the one available on the Acer support website (v1.04). In the BIOS settings, it's possible to change from UEFI to Legacy, but then I lose the Secure Boot (not that it really matters, I suppose). It isn't possible to disable Secure Boot while in UEFI mode and this may be the cause of the errors.

If all else fails, I can restore the original HDD image and go from there, but I'd really like to find a solution.

Any suggestions?

 

[NJW]

Oh, the perils of going round in circles late at night.

UEFI mode != Secure Boot, of course.

To disable Secure Boot (which I hadn't done), it's necessary to set a Supervisor password. Until this is set, the Secure Boot options are not available.

After installation, Secure Boot can be turned on again and the Supervisor password cleared. It's all there in the various install methods (except the need to set a password to unlock the setting), but the significance passed me by.

Panic over, it's out the door.