I recently bought a Dell Inspiron 3520 from eBay to experiment with various Linux distros. The seller mentioned the laptop was sold "as-is" and had Windows removed, which means it can't boot from the hard drive, showing an "Insert Boot Media" prompt instead.
After getting the computer, I checked the BIOS, but I found out that the cursor keys don't work! I managed to install Fedora by using the DVD drive, but now I can't navigate the BIOS to change the boot order for trying out other distros. I just want to explore different Linux versions without being locked into one. Any suggestions on how to regain access to the boot options?
3 Answers
It depends on your keyboard type. If you have a USB or wired keyboard around, give that a try. Wireless ones can sometimes be finicky with BIOS. Just make sure to get anything you can find and see if it helps!
Try connecting an external keyboard to your laptop! Sometimes that can help with navigating the BIOS if the built-in keyboard isn't working properly. It's worth a shot!
Do you think the BIOS would recognize it? I'd rather not spend more money on this if I can avoid it. Thanks!
You actually don't need to navigate the BIOS to switch between distributions. If you can get into your system, go to /etc/default/grub and uncomment GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false, then run update-grub. This will let GRUB detect all installed OSes for you when you boot!
Oh, I didn’t mention this is a laptop. Thanks for the suggestion!