[Bug 1734147] Re: Ubuntu 17.10 corrupting BIOS - many LENOVO laptops models

[britgreek]

A message to the developers.

The situation in my case is the following:

Many identical laptops in a private educational institution, (Lenovo
G40-30), running Windows 10 (64bit) and Lubuntu 17.04 (64bit) in LEGACY
Mode, without any problems. A few days ago, we decided to install Ubuntu
17.10 on the laptops, replacing Lubuntu 17.04. Immediately after the
installation of 17.10, the BIOS failed to save settings and the option
to boot from USB stopped showing up. Time and date are correct and have
not been affected. We have tried 35 different USB flash drives, created
with every software available, as well as dd via command line to check
whether USB boot would work, but it didn't. Neither secure boot nor fast
boot is enabled. Lenovo's bios upgrade tool does not work, as the
computers simply restart when we run the executable from Windows.
Regarding your comment that the Fall Creators Update might have caused
the problem, that cannot be right, as this was performed quite a few
weeks ago, and the BIOS worked fine after the completion of the update.
We contacted the technical support of Lenovo in Greece,  They stated
that Linux is not officially supported by Lenovo, so there is not much
they can do about it. Yet, they agreed to contact their headquarters to
notify them about the problem and request a solution. They clearly
stated that the BIOS malfunction might be resolved by replacing the
motherboards.

If neither Ubuntu nor Lenovo can help us, what should we do? Throw away
the laptops that have been affected, simply because we decided to use a
newer version of Ubuntu? The laptops worked fine until the moment Ubuntu
17.10 was installed. Please try to have a look at it and do let us know
what information you need from us in order to help us resolve this
extremely serious problem which has bricked our devices' bios. Please
let me repeat that the problem occurred right after the installation of
Ubuntu 17.10 in Legacy mode.

Thank you in advance for your time.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1734147

Title:
  Ubuntu 17.10 corrupting BIOS - many LENOVO laptops models

Status in grub2 package in Ubuntu:
  Incomplete

Bug description:
  Hi all,

  Basically on Lenovo Y50-70 after installing Ubuntu 17.10, many users
  reported a corrupted BIOS.

  It's not possible to save new settings in BIOS anymore and after
  rebooting, the system starts with the old settings.

  Moreover (and most important) USB booting is not possible anymore
  since USB is not recognized. It's very serious, since our machines do
  not have a CDROM.

  Lenovo forums at the moment are full of topics regading this issue.

  For example:

  https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Lenovo-P-Y-and-Z-series/Y50-70-BIOS-Can-t
  -Save-Settings-or-boot-with-USB/m-p/3849142

  https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Lenovo-P-Y-and-Z-series/Y50-70-BIOS-Can-t
  -Save-Settings-Or-Exit/m-p/3601285

  https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Lenovo-P-Y-and-Z-series/y50-70-BIOS-can-t
  -save-settings-and-I-can-t-boot-system/m-p/3865727

  Thank you!!

  #### UPDATE (27/11/2017) ####

  LENOVO machines affected so far:

  Lenovo Y50-70
  Lenovo G40-30
  Lenovo U31-70
  Lenovo G50-70
  Lenovo Z50-70
  Lenovo Yoga Thinkpad (20C0)

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