how to avoid bricking my computer again

[goatsforpres]

i have an ideapad flex 5 has an AMD radeon graphics and ryzen 7 4000 series im not super expeirenced with computers aside from basic using i installed ubuntu on a really old computer and it was really easy so i did that to my new laptop and it wouldnt recognize the mouse pad but eventually i decided to re install and i bricked the computer it wouldnt boot up at all not even to bios screen would light up but thats it so i cashed the warranty and they had to replace the motherboard so how could i avoid those problems this time im gonna start by using a live version first but idk if theres anything else to look for or do

 

[Condobloke]

G'day, and Welcome to Linux.org

The scenario you describe below is very unlikely.....reinstalling will not brick your computer. Either something else was done or there was something else wrong, like a pre-existing condition.
The people providing the warranty would not have honored it, if the fault had been yours. In addition to that I suspect the motherboard must have really fried itself !!.....this is never going to be your fault !

i decided to re install and i bricked the computer

When you run Ubuntu or Linux Mint as a live version, tell us how you go about that first ......and also tell us how it behaves when you have it running.

 

[I-hate-Windows]

it is literally impossible to brick a bios or install of linux, ask me i bricked many an install, sometimes the os selection screen flashes by so fast you think bios is unavailable, it happened to me on a dell laptop, win 11 updated itself and then bricked the install with bit locker....... a reboot went blank and appeared to skip bios, smashing the correct button repeatedly after powering on always solves this issue, so just google your computer and see how to enter bios, most common options are escape delete or f2, so if you cant be arsed to look stuff up smash all 3 seperately and quickly after powering it on and see, once you are in bios you will realize its just a bad os install

 

[goatsforpres]

G'day, and Welcome to Linux.org

The scenario you describe below is very unlikely.....reinstalling will not brick your computer. Either something else was done or there was something else wrong, like a pre-existing condition.
The people providing the warranty would not have honored it, if the fault had been yours. In addition to that I suspect the motherboard must have really fried itself !!.....this is never going to be your fault !



When you run Ubuntu or Linux Mint as a live version, tell us how you go about that first ......and also tell us how it behaves when you have it running.

Honestly patience isn’t my strong suit so when I loaded up the live version it worked great and I thought I was set so I just said **** it and clicked install and was so excited to have a Linux computer again and got all the way to it being set up but then it gave me a message saying do you want to update after I had finished the setup portion and it has now sat on the manufacturer’s/Lenovo boot up screen for a solid minute sorry about the late reply

 

[goatsforpres]

G'day, and Welcome to Linux.org

The scenario you describe below is very unlikely.....reinstalling will not brick your computer. Either something else was done or there was something else wrong, like a pre-existing condition.
The people providing the warranty would not have honored it, if the fault had been yours. In addition to that I suspect the motherboard must have really fried itself !!.....this is never going to be your fault !



When you run Ubuntu or Linux Mint as a live version, tell us how you go about that first ......and also tell us how it behaves when you have it running.

 

[goatsforpres]

G'day, and Welcome to Linux.org

The scenario you describe below is very unlikely.....reinstalling will not brick your computer. Either something else was done or there was something else wrong, like a pre-existing condition.
The people providing the warranty would not have honored it, if the fault had been yours. In addition to that I suspect the motherboard must have really fried itself !!.....this is never going to be your fault !



When you run Ubuntu or Linux Mint as a live version, tell us how you go about that first ......and also tell us how it behaves when you have it running.

Ok so I just reseted the computer and it’s off the boot up screen and seems to be working great thank you for your reply and time

 

[Condobloke]

but then it gave me a message saying do you want to update after I had finished the setup portion and it has now sat on the manufacturer’s/Lenovo boot up screen for a solid minute

1. Were there many updates ?...how long did they take to download and install ...approx ?

2. You said, just above....that you 'reset' the computer. How did you do that?...did you simply reboot ?

 

[Condobloke]

Just to give you some background/info....so you know what is 'normal' with ubuntu/linux etc......

I run Linux Mint 21.2
I update every day....sometimes several times a day

Just as a safety precaution, I use Timeshift....and i save one snapshot to an external drive per day. I have the 'schedule' set so that I keep 2 snapshots permanently....as the days go by and timeshift takes a snapshot per day it also deletes the older snapshots.....so it doesn't take up too much room on the external drive. I also keep TV shows and other stuff on that external. The external is formatted as an ext4 file system because that is what Timeshift requires. It doesn't affect tv shows or movies etc

I have used Linix Mint since approx 2014. I have needed to rely big time on Timeshift 3 times since then

The stuff ups have been the fault of Linux Mint updates....just once.....they have been my fault on the other two of those occasions

lesson number 1. Learn patience.

 

[I-hate-Windows]

lmao you just bring this up, and manjaro just updated and broke my wifi, i just restored with timeshift a few minutes ago which is on same drive as boot lol and removed kdeconnect which was causing the issue, i dont even use it anyway, now all is well, took me about 30 minutes to figure which app was causing the issue