Problem booting Acer desktop from CD or USB

[DarkCyber]

I have an Acer Aspire XC-603G desktop with Windows 8. I am needing to boot this pc from either CD or USB, but I am unable to do so. I have went into the BIOS and turned off secure boot. I then have gone to the boot menu and selected CD/DVD and Removeable Media as 1 and 2 in the boot order. There is no Legacy Boot anywhere in this BIOS. All I can get it to give me upon boot up when I press F12 is Windows Boot Manager. I can find no where to turn on Legacy Boot.

This is BIOS version 2.16.1242 Copyright 2002 - 2014 Acer...if that helps.

Any suggestions would be welcomed?

Thanks!

 

[evilsofa]

"If the boot menu feature is not available in the BIOS setup menu, then the option is not available on your system."

Enabling the Boot Device Menu

"Note: Not all Acer notebooks or netbooks have the F12 Boot Menu feature. Computers that do not have the F12 Boot Menu feature will not be able to enable the feature within the BIOS."

Why can't I get the F12 Boot Menu to work on my notebook or netbook?

"I finally managed to resolve the problem myself. I knew that it must be possible to get to the boot menu, because I've seen other posts on linux forums discussing issues with this particular model of Acer Aspire.
In case anybody else wants to get to the boot menu, you need to hit F2 when booting the machine. This will initially take you into the very restricted Setup menu (which doesn't enable you to change boot order). Once in the Setup menu, hit Esc to exit. The system will try to start Windows, but if you quickly hit F2 again it takes you into a full Setup menu which enables you to set the boot order.
Anyway, it worked and I've set the netbook to dual boot Linux or Windows 7 (Linux first of course)."

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2104140

 

[DarkCyber]

Thanks for the information, but this is an Acer Slimline Desktop...I can get the F12 Boot Menu to show up as well as the DEL for setup. The problem is that when I press F12 and get the boot menu, the only thing I can get to display is "Windows Boot Manager", nothing else in the list. Even if I turn off Secure Boot in the BIOS and list the CD or USB as first boot. I cannot get anything else to show up in the Boot Menu list. And if I have a boot CD or USB in the computer and don't press F12 it will just boot straight to the OS, never even tries to boot from CD or USB.

 

[DarkCyber]

I called Acer tech support after trying to get numerous boot discs and USB boot drives to show up in the boot menu and none would ever show up. The guy told me the BIOS will not allow the computer to boot from third party software. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. But after numerous attempts I finally put a Windows 8 installation disc into the CD/DVD drive and sure enough now pressing F12 shows the DVD drive and Windows Boot Manager. So, if you purchase an Acer product with Windows 8 you cannot boot your computer with any of the normal boot tech tools to work on your computer.