Lenovo Advantage ran a battery firmware update and upon the restart, MS Bitlocker was triggered. I retrieved the key and started Windows again but the damage was done, the computer blue screens now every time it tries to change power states. My hotkeys no longer work (for anything) and I can’t change power states for the CPU/GPU in the UEFI either. The menus change but it stays in the same state after I save and exit. UEFI startup time is significantly slower as well.
I wiped the drive anew and tried a manufacturer reset via a factory Windows 11 USB recovery drive but it tries to change power states on its second restart of the installation and leaves me in a loop of bluescreens no matter the UEFI settings I try.
It runs Linux fine from a USB and the internal NVme but has seemingly no idea what the battery is really doing and hotkeys still don’t work. I can’t find a Linux equivalent to these drivers and Lenovo doesn’t make them as they don’t distro this laptop with Linux. This is my only PC, and I am on Linux Mint now (via an Ext. USB 3.0 HDD). WINE and VirtualBox seem to be my only options, and from Linux as well because they will not properly emulate the capabilities of utilities that seem to be able to flash a Windows To Go USB properly. I don’t know if I trust a firmware flash or if it’s dangerous to run from a VM. I’m equally nervous about doing it from a USB/flash drive, Windows or not.
I’ve read until my face is blue and I keep hitting dead ends on either making a portable Windows USB in Linux or flashing from a Virtual Machine. Has anyone successfully figured out a way to get mobo drivers onto a computer in this sort of situation? Any ideas?
