No access to BIOS nor ability to boot from USB

[donkilluminativ]

Hi, after LinusTechTips Forum failed to help I an now going one level higherr and asking you guys for help.

I have a refurbished pc here which is put together on a Lenovo motherboard. Windows 10 running from a Samsung SSD.
I caught a mean Trojan.BitcoinMiner that i cant get rid of so I really want to do a format and start fresh since its time anyway.
I have Win10 bootable USB that i actually used on my girlfriends pc a few days ago so everything ok with it 100%.
My PC boots to Windows almost instantly not giving me a chance to read anything from the "ThinkCentre" screen at the beggining i think it says press enter? to enter setup (which doesnt happen anyway.
I tried to get into bios or any other screen so tried F1,F2,F9,F11,F12,DEL etc. holding, pressing,tapping no matter what i do the PC boots into OS.

I also tried to do it the way where you go Settings>Update&Security>Restart Now and play around with the different options there. i should have an option for UEFI Firmware Settings or Use a device (to boot from) but i dont have either of these options.

I tried doing the System Restore option built into Windows but i get a notification at about 30%
telling me that it Failed and no changes were made.

I would apprecite any help you guys can provide and I will answer all questions that may lead to a solution as soon as I can.

System Specs
https://postimg.cc/HVHScQV5

 

[popatim]

Win10 doesn't normally fully shutdown so bypasses much of the startup process. You need to hold down the shift key when you click on shutdown for it to perform a true shutdown, otherwise you get what they dub a Hybrid-shutdown.

Now when you power it back on, with the win10 flash drive already in, On the Lenovo screen look for a message that says something akin to Boot Options and press the corresponding key (often F12) . Next select the flash drive from the list of bootable devices and away you go...

 

[donkilluminativ]

indeed i forgot to mention i tried to shut down while holding shift. found that on google somewhere. didnt make any difference unfortunately. just boots to OS as normal

 

[racksmith101]

Sounds like you have fast boot enabled, try clearing the CMOS and see if that allows you into the BIOS.

 

[donkilluminativ]

the option to disable fast boot is greyed out for me but i clicked on "show settings that are currently unavailable" (in the power management options) and turned it off anyway. - that didnt make any difference

I just took out the cmos battery, all that did was the PC powered on but showed just a black screen, then restarted and booted as normal. i would describe it as "stutter"

 

[BFG-9000]

Well it's a desktop so you could always move SATA cables around, to place either an optical drive or tiny Fat32 HDD/SSD holding the install media ahead in the boot order.

If you install the SSD temporarily into another PC, you could at least erase it with DBAN or other bootable utility which may then prompt a BIOS message as there would be nothing bootable. As a last resort, if the other PC is similar enough to the Lenovo you may even be able to install Win 10 on it there and have it boot on the Lenovo.

 

[donkilluminativ]

I have tried unplugging the SSD and was faced with a Intel Boot Agent which told me to Insert boot media and try gain which i did and only got myself into a loop with that message. as if it wasnt detecting anything but the ssd as a bootable drive.

Which is kinda weird because what would I do if i wanted to get rid of the SSD altogether and install OS on the HDD instead.. just not letting me

As a last resort I will take the SSD out and put it into my girlfriends PC and install windows on it that way although I would like to sort out the issue from a to z on my PC. this issue is going on for 2 weeks now so i will not let lenovo win this battle. - just let people get into their bios for christ sake