Linux Will Not Boot

Before undertaking any of the more time-consuming solutions below, here are a few basic steps to get you start:

• Check your Power Source: Ensure your device is powering on and the nessessary cables are functioning correctly. Connect another device, try a different cable, swap the plug to a different charging port if available, and swap to another outlet to verify. We also have several troubleshooting articles for HP, Dell, Acer, Asus, and Razer laptops.
• Restart your device: It's Troubleshooting 101 for good reason. Temporary issues during the boot process can prevent your operating system from loading properly.
• Check your Boot order: If you recently installed Linux onto your machine then you might want to double check in your BIOS that Linux is set to boot first. Accessing the BIOS/UEFI settings will differ from machine to machine, but you can normally do this by pressing the designated key (e.g., F2, F12, or Del) during your computers startup.
• Ensure the quick/fast start is disabled: Quick boot speeds up the booting process by skipping, or mimimizing, the hardware initialization checks. Most Linux distributions relie on the firmware/BIOS to initialize all connected devices properly before handing control to the OS. Without this initialization, the boot process might fail because essential hardware is not ready.
• Ensure your Window Manager is Started: If your graphical interface hasn’t been started, or was accedently terminated, then you might get a black screen. Try running the startx command to run an Xserver, and ensure the command is being ran in the ~/.xinitrc, or other appropriate file directory.
• Disconnect External Devices: Remove unnecessary peripherals (e.g., USB drives, external hard drives) to rule out hardware conflicts.

CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor) is a technology used in computer hardware, that stores essential system information including BIOS or UEFI data, and boot prioritie, and requires a small battery to keep the data stored. Typically these batteries last roughly 3 to 5 years, so if the battery dies prematurely then this might mess with your BIOS settings and can prevent your Linux distrobution from booting properly.

• If it has been a while since you’ve changed your BIOS battery, then you should consider replacing the battery with a new one.

As the name implies, the boot manager manages the boot process for your operating system. A corrupted or missing boot manager can prevent the system from booting. Most modern Linux distributions will use the GRUB bootloader, and the instructions are as follows…

1. Boot from a Linux live USB.
2. Open the terminal program and use the following commands to identify the disk where your distribution’s GRUB is installed. This will be either lsblk or sudo fdisk -l. The path is normally labled as /dev/sda or /dev/sdb.
3. Install GRUB to the Master Boot Record using the command sudo grub-install /dev/sda, replacing /dev/sda with the appropriate path. If your system uses UEFI instead of a traditional BIOS then you are going to need to install GRUB to the EFI partition.
4. After GRUB finishes installing, you will need to generate the GRUB configuration file using either sudo update-grub, ''''or sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg, and reboot your system with sudo reboot.

GRUB should load properly and will present you with the boot menu.

If your device is completly unresponsive that you will likely need to install the drivers manually, or a piece of hardware is incompatable with your Linux distribution.

• If you are using a Linux live USB then you are going to want to look in /var/log/syslog or dmesg.  The syslog directory sould provide imporatnt information regaurding your devices drivers and hardware. Graphics errors will be listed in ~/.Xsession-errors or /var/log/Xorg.0.log.
• The part's manufacturer may have drivers that are even more current than Acer's. This is especially relevant for graphics processing. Check AMD, Intel, or NVidia directly.

Avoid any program advertised as a driver updater if it doesn't come directly from an electronics manufacturer (ie. Intel, AMD, Realtek). These can install the incorrect drivers at best or malware at worst.

• If updating doesn't resolve the issue, and you think you know which device is the issue, try uninstalling the driver and reinstalling it. This will be specific to your Linux distribution.

If you continue to experience problems and aren't able to load a fresh install of your operating system, or if you are getting a "No Bootable Device" or "Operating System Not Found" error on the BIOS screen, the problem likely originates from your storage device.

• If your storage drive is SMART capable, then you can test your drive with the smartmontools application set.
• Boot from a Linux live USB.
• Open the terminal program and use the command sudo apt-get install smartmontools to install smartmontools, and sudo smartctl -I /dev/sda to test if your drive is SMART compatable. /dev/sda is the parth your hard drive.
• If your drive is SMART capable, but not enabled, you can enable it with sudo smartctl -s on /dev/sda.
• To run the test use sudo smartctl -H /dev/sda.
• While you’re in the Live USB Session, you should check to ensure that your Root Partion isn’t full by using the df -h command. If it’s full, then you’ll need to free up storage space.
• If your device’s drive has tested as bad, or has a more traditional hard drive disk (HDD), consider replacing it with an solid state drive (SSD) for a performance boost. SSDs are more energy efficient and much speedier.

Random Access Memory, commonly known as RAM, is a likely hardware culprit for issues with booting into your OS.

• Reseat your RAM modules. Numerous tiny pins could be slightly out of alignment. Removing them and reinstalling them might be all it takes to fix this.
• Test your RAM by running a diagnostic.
  • IT Professionals have been using memtext86 for ages to test RAM. It's a free tool, and its documentation is excellent! However, it requires a bit more knowledge to use.
• RAM tests are notoriously long, and minor failures are complex for tests to find. Trust diagnostic failures, but not passes. Multiple diagnostic runs may be needed to find an issue.
• Replace the memory if diagnostics fail—either increasing the overall size or keeping the exact amount and speed.

In the event that you need to recover data from your machine, you can recover data using a bootable Live Linux USB or CD. From there, you can access your hard drive to check for issues or recover data if necessary. Once your data has been fully retrived, you can reinstall your OS.