# How to Reset Linux ASUS EEEPC?



## RAMally (Mar 27, 2010)

My laptop, which was working fine before I did this, now displays the message "Reboot and Select Proper Boot Device"...on a black screen whenever I restart the computer.

My laptop is one of the small white notebooks, and I saw that I had already used up most of the disk memory, so I tried to reset the hard drive(s), because I thought this would erase everything. I'm guessing it worked, but now it won't boot past that message. I've entered the BIOS and reset everything using F2 already, but this message keeps popping up. 

Because my computer doesn't have a CD drive, it didn't come with a recovery CD. Everything looks intact to me on the inside (motherboard, etc.) so I don't see what's wrong with it.

I don't remember exactly what I did, but I think now it doesn't recognize the hard drive or something, although it's there. Regrettably, I did this using a tutorial on ehow or wikihow a few weeks ago. Nothing I do to the BIOS is helping, so is it a physical problem with the computer? I don't even know what to look for to find the BIOS inside the computer, or the hard drive.

How do I put everything back to its factory settings/fix this problem? Thank you in advance!


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## wmorri (May 29, 2008)

Hi,

Welcome to TSF!!

I would like to know what linux OS you had on your computer before you decided to brick it. Also, if you can try and remember what any of the instructions were that you followed that would be great. 

I have a couple of ideas bouncing around in my head but I want to make sure we are on the same page before I through to much at you at once.

Cheers!


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## RAMally (Mar 27, 2010)

I'm not sure which Linux OS it was, but since it was recently made (2007), I suppose it's a recent distrubution? I can't get on right now to see. I don't have anything else installed on there like Ubuntu--I've been using it just as I bought it.

Here's a hyperlink to the exact thing I used to do it:

http://www.ehow.com/how_1000631_hard-drive-linux.html

Looking back on that, I'm hardly even sure what I did...I'm not exactly computer-literate and shouldn't have done it myself. I've tried pressing "F9" to reset everything, but that doesn't work, either (nothing happens). Thank you for helping!


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## wmorri (May 29, 2008)

Hi,

Okay you wiped your hdd with fdisk. That is something that can happen every now and then when you don't know what you are doing. So let me ask you what OS do you want to put on it? Origanally it had Xandros on it. This is a non-free distribution of linux, and one that I am not perticually fond of. That said there are a number of options for you. 

You can install Linux onto it. Also, you can install Windows 7 or XP if you wanted to go that route too. So here is some food for thought. Let me know what you want to do and we can figure out how to make it work.

Cheers!


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## RAMally (Mar 27, 2010)

For the OS, I would really like to go back to Windows 7, if it can be done, since Windows is more familiar to me...however, I have no really strong preference. I didn't know I had messed up my whole current OS :O!


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## koala (Mar 27, 2005)

I've got an Asus EEEPC with XP pre-installed, and I think the method is the same for EEEPCs with Linux. There's a recovery partition (D that allows you to reset everything back to how it was on day one. Turn the computer on and press the F10 key. When the menu appears, select option 1 'Restore the system to factory default settings'.


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## RAMally (Mar 27, 2010)

F10 did nothing...no menu even came up. Maybe that's just for Windows? It just goes straight from the white logo screen to the "Reboot and Select proper..." message again.


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## koala (Mar 27, 2005)

Sorry, I meant F9 not F10 (it's been a while since I used it), and I see you've already tried that. I did it on mine a few weeks ago to restore the operating system back to factory defaults after getting the same error message and blank screen as you.



RAMally said:


> I've tried pressing "F9" to reset everything, but that doesn't work, either (nothing happens).


Did you keep tapping F9 straight after turning the computer on?

Watch these videos to see the F9 restore in action:

YouTube - eeePC restore the whole system . YouTube - How quick can you factory restore an Asus Eee PC


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## wmorri (May 29, 2008)

Koala thanks for jumping in on this one. I had forgotten about the restore partition on this laptop.


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## RAMally (Mar 27, 2010)

O.O...I _wish_ my laptop would do that...but I've pressed the F9 key since the computer came on and in the end all it results in is multiple "Reboot and Select Proper Boot Device or Insert Boot Media in Selected Boot device and Press a Key" all down the page each time I press any button once the black screen comes on 

Another strange thing is, I set the BIOS to boot from the flash drive with two different flash drives and it just won't do it, even though according to BIOS settings it should. It even recognizes the flash drive...I was trying to run a downloaded version of the ACER ASPIRE recovery CD (dunno how good it is, was waiting to find out)...but the laptop doesn't seem to be recognizing anything really. 

Under IDE Confoguration in the BIOS, it says (after I restored default settings for BIOS) that both IDE Master and IDE Slave are "not detected". And on the Boot Device Priority it says "A device enclosed in parenthesis has been disabled in the corresponding type menu", and everything is in [parenthesis!]

:/ I'm getting a bit bewildered here...any ideas? Would reformatting this fdisk thing cause the hard drive to go unrecognized?


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