WanderingMind Since gparted doesn't 'see' the drive either, I can't format it. Already tried that.

WOW. Windows had made itself undetectable. Bizarre.

it's about the aspire: https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/590106/cant-change-sata-mode-to-ahci-in-order-to-install-ubuntu-for-dual-boot and the hidden commands you need to get advanced bios settings. I had to do this to get Solus on a Satellie laptop I was gifted.

I see only one 'SOLVED' with Nitro and Mint side by side https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=398051 but you get yourself way out of proportion like Gumby again..

I'm sure you are 85 articles ahead of me

      zmaint Yes, the BIOS shows there is a hard drive in there. It's just that the live session can't find it. Trying to delete the secure boot key sounds as if it won't hurt anything. I'm also going to give my other idea a try, just to see what happens. If I waste time, then I do. At least I'll have a bit more experience. Just makes more sense to find out as much as I can before I try ideas which are far out there. (Assuming the live session detects there is an available driver to be added, I'll also have more information about that, even if the driver "disappears" during the install process.)

        brent Thanks. I'm going to see if I can figure anything out. Stubborn isn't always a bad quality.

        Oddly enough, I have a Satellite, which I had no trouble putting Solus on. It runs great - but the hinge is breaking (yes, one of those Satellites) so I can't use it until I get a repair guy to look at it. That fix is definitely more than I feel ready to take on.

        Edited to add: yes, I get my hands on whatever computers I can. Some of them won't even run Windows for various reasons. Most of them end up working. Save a few for myself, then donate the rest so they don't end up scrap quite so fast. Seeing what some of those old machines can do is what impressed me most about Linux. And turned me off Windows.

          Axios Until I boot the machine up again, I won't know for certain what it was set at. But I think it may have been set at RAID, which is something that caught my eye because I'm leery of RAID. If I am right, this would only be the second time I have ever encountered RAID. The first was not a good experience. If there is a way of fixing that drive, I've never found it. (Although never quite tossed the drive, just in case I learn more.)

          My question about your advice is this: since RAID seems to be very, very particular, if the mode is set to RAID, will I be able to change it without damaging anything? Or is there anything to watch out for there?

              WanderingMind If its set to (Raid) thats prob your problem.
              and if your still using windows yes it would cause issue.
              You have to go through some steps to convert windows to non raid setting when changing in bios I dont Remb
              really what they were been to long.
              If linux is all you got would cause no issues Linux will not work with it set to (Raid)

                  Axios Okay, thank you. I'm going to give your advice a try a bit later. Once I have some answers, then I'll post whatever I learn here. Making Windows unhappy doesn't bother me at all. When I get my hands on any computer with Windows installed, it only stays there until I've replaced it with Linux.

                    Axios I did as you suggested. Solus Plasma is now working on my Acer.
                    One small fly in the ointment is it does not seem to want to boot into the BIOS. At the moment, I would only do this to clear up one very minor issue (an annoying password demand before the machine will boot at all). So I'm not going to worry about it until I have time to look into that. At least the machine is working. Thank you.

                        WanderingMind One small fly in the ointment is it does not seem to want to boot into the BIOS. At the moment, I would only do this to clear up one very minor issue (an annoying password demand before the machine will boot at all).

                        you spam your F12 (or whatever key) when booting, to show the boot menu, you see BIOS, select it. and it just hangs and does nothing?

                        Those annoying master passwords are usually created in the BIOS. On the Satellite I had to create a master PW in order to access the hidden features of the BIOS that would let me install Solus. That didn't happen to you?

                            brent On the Satelite. no. Once I had it booting from USB, I was good to go.
                            As far as this machine, the ESC key brings up the same prompt to boot into the BIOS, but then nothing happens when I choose that. It just sits there with a blank screen until I power down. Annoying, but the machine is working for now. So I'm using it in preference to the ancient one running Lubuntu which didn't even have space for all my files while I take care of a few things I need to, then try to figure out what happened.

                                WanderingMind My gut feeling the remaining issues are bios related mostly
                                as I have read alot about that on net.
                                I dont have any acer stuff so limited to how bios acts but sure the forum could help if needed let us know.

                                    Axios every time I think I got laptop bios figured out, I find out everything I knew was wrong.

                                    his bios does not want to show itself anymore. at least Solus boots.