[TriLUG] Locked Out Linux box

[David Burton via TriLUG]

Paul, when Karl Flores says "put it in an external container" he means for
you to temporarily put your laptop's HDD or SSD in one of these USB SATA
enclosures (or adapters or docks, which are the same thing without the
aluminum or plastic box):
https://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_ex_n_1?bbn=
11548952011&keywords=usb+sata+%28adapter+or+enclosure%29
https://www.ebay.com/b/Computer-Drive-Enclosures-Docks/158817/bn_738294

I recommend the USB 3 enclosures which have an extra USB plug, like these:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Aluminium-2-5-USB-3-0-SATA-HDD-Hard-Drive-Disk-External-Case-Enclosure-Black-/301126481208
http://www.ebay.com/itm/USB-3-0-2-5-inch-SATA-External-Hard-Drive-Mobile-Disk-HD-Enclosure-Case-Box-/391696478916

A USB 3 port is spec'd to be able to supply at most 0.9 A at 5v = 4.5W of
power, which should be sufficient for most 2.5" SATA drives. But a USB 2
port is spec'd to be able to supply at most only 0.5 A at 5v = 2.5W of
power, which is insufficient for many 2.5" SATA HDDs. The "extra USB plug"
can be used to make up the power shortfall by providing extra power from a
2nd USB port.

The 2nd USB plug was commonplace on USB 2 external enclosures, but the USB
3 external enclosures often omit it. If you don't mind being restricted to
using your external enclosure with USB 3 ports, then you can get an
enclosure which lacks the 2nd USB connector.

Some SATA-to-USB adapters come with a separate power supply brick. *Beware*
*of* *those*! They are *dangerous* to your hardware and your data. Those
power bricks are generally horribly low quality. One of them blew a
surface-mounted fuse on the circuit board of my 1.5 TB WDC 3.5" drive,
rendering it a brick (until I tracked down the problem and replaced the
fuse with a tiny bit of wire).

Dave


On Wed, Oct 11, 2017 at 10:31 PM, David Burton <ncdave4life at gmail.com>
 wrote:

> First try a power-cycle: disconnect BOTH power sources (battery & AC),
> press power button, reconnect power sources, try powering on again.
>

On Thu, Oct 12, 2017 at 1:21 AM, karl flores via TriLUG <trilug at trilug.org>
wrote:

> Take out the drive and put it in an external container. Start the computer
> and see if you have access to bios. Install a new drive and create a new
> boot disk, you can also use a boot thumb drive if you have one with simple
> OS. Once you have rebooted to new drive, try to get access to old drive
> through external access. You should be able to look inside the boot script
> to see if it is corrupted. Keep us up to date on fix.
>
> On Wed, Oct 11, 2017 at 9:54 PM, Paul Boyle via TriLUG <trilug at trilug.org>
> wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > I have a big problem:  I'm running OpenSuSE LEAP 42.2 on an Acer Aspire
> > E17 x86_64 (Core i5 machine).  My machine froze (no mouse, unresponsive
> > keyboard (couldn't switch to another VT)).  So, I did what most people
> > would do:  I hit the power button to reboot. I got prompted with question
> > that was something like this:  "Do you agree to use only Linux (or was it
> > Opensuse?) certified boot loaders? (or something like that).  The default
> > answer was "No".  So I hit "No".  Then I got a brief message saying the
> > machine is locked out, and the machine powered off.
> >
> > Now, the machine will not even come up with a BIOS set up message.  I
> > power it on, and the power light goes on, and then nothing.  I opened the
> > DVD drive to try to boot from the installation media.  No dice there
> > either.  Basically, I've bricked my laptop, which is really a bad thing
> for
> > me.
> >
> > How can I rescue my laptop?  Will taking out and reinstalling the battery
> > pack and/or the CMOS or BIOS battery clear this lock out?
> >
> > Any help would be appreciated.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Paul