Gemini hard reset?

[nullgenome]

Right I've painted myself into a corner.

PCS advised to reinstall Windows due to a touch screen issue on a brand new Gemini tablet/laptop.

Had already created an account with p/w that I stupidly didn't note down as I was going to wipe anyway so I thought it didn't matter.

So created a bootable USB stick with Win 8.1. Thing doesn't boot from it even when trying restart or shutdown and power on. I cant get into the BIOS either.

PCS then told me it never really shuts down explaining the lack of BIOS access and that I need to log in and then type when in tile screen: 'shutdown /p' and then it'll really power off.

Now see how I've snookered myself???

So there must be away to hard reset these things via hardware, does anyone know!?!?!?!?!!? I'm going to return this thing soon!!!

 

[mantadog]

Run it out of battery? That's the best I can come up with. I am interested in getting one of these though so I will pay close interest in how you resolve this.

 

[nullgenome]

Run it out of battery? That's the best I can come up with. I am interested in getting one of these though so I will pay close interest in how you resolve this.

yep that's what I've unfortunately come up with. So frustrating really cause the hardware seems really good

 

[mantadog]

Was this a new account you used for signing in? Had you ever used the email address with Microsoft before? If so then you can use this link to get the password.https://account.live.com/password/reset If not, any chance you could remember the password? No harm in bashing in a few different ones it could be.

One thing to note is you can get the password back even if you don't have any of the required information the above link needs, it just takes forever (like a month I think).

One thing you could try ( though I think PCS might have pointed this out already if it were possible)

Shut it down. Press the power button to turn it on but then hold power and volume up. Also try power and volume down in the same manner.

if that fails you could try holding the power button when its at the login screen. you could also try holding the power and volume up when at the log in screen and the power button and the volume down.

I think that's the only buttons it has available. Those things work on many mobiles so just a chance it works on that tablet too. hope it does because its much easier than having to send it back

 

[nullgenome]

Was this a new account you used for signing in? Had you ever used the email address with Microsoft before? If so then you can use this link to get the password.https://account.live.com/password/reset If not, any chance you could remember the password? No harm in bashing in a few different ones it could be.

One thing to note is you can get the password back even if you don't have any of the required information the above link needs, it just takes forever (like a month I think).

One thing you could try ( though I think PCS might have pointed this out already if it were possible)

Shut it down. Press the power button to turn it on but then hold power and volume up. Also try power and volume down in the same manner.

if that fails you could try holding the power button when its at the login screen. you could also try holding the power and volume up when at the log in screen and the power button and the volume down.

I think that's the only bottoms it has available. Those things work on many mobiles so just a chance it works on that tablet too. hope it does because its much easier than having to send it back

I didn't want it linked to a MS email account so no joy there, thanks though.

I did some various power on and off button combinations and found that if I held down 'Vol Down+Pwr' constantly to power on after a shutdown until it powers on and off again after the PCS splash screen I then power it on normally I get into a recovery screen, promising

thanks for the suggestions, will update again after I've progressed some more but I think I'm good now. Recovery menu had options to read from USB/DVD, reset, restore, adjust UEFI and a few more

I've chosen adjust UEFI and it's rebooted into the BIOS, get in!!!!

 

[mantadog]

Good good, just a wild guess on my part from what mobile tend to be, so glad it worked for you.

 

[nullgenome]

ok so I can't give a guaranteed way to get into recovery mode as I think just holding down power so it starts and stops again might be enough. Just messing around with the hardware buttons enough to kick off recovery mode will then enable you to get access to the system.

Please be aware I had no data on the device so made no attempt to keep anything as was. If you find yourself in my situation with data you want to keep then what I did below is not for you!!

So got in to BIOS, enabled the diag and traditional screens, fast boot was already disabled. Then changed the boot order so the USB stick (that was plugged in) was above the windows boot manager. Rebooted and then discovered my USB image turned out not to work any way!!

I then got back in to recovery mode and reset the PC. You have two options, 1 if you're keeping the device which does a quick but insecure wipe and the other which says is a lot slower but is secure for when you're selling it for example. I chose the first.

This then enabled me to set up the device again and remember the password!

I was then able to correctly setup my USB stick (Rufus using GPT for EUFI, not MBR) and then to a full reinstall, including wiping the partitions (apart from the OEM). It does seem to have resolved the unresponsive screen issue but I may have lost the multi touch functionality of the keyboard's trackpad. I need to do further testing.

So in summary:

1) I still not know if there is a hard reset method
2) typing 'shutdown /p' in the initial tile screen of Win 8.1 doesn't work. Open a command prompt and type it. It didn't seem to make any difference to me for accessing BIOS or booting from USB
3) The best way and only guaranteed way to access the BIOS I can find is to us the recovery method. If you can log in, from the tile screen its:

Flick down to see Apps list > PC Settings > Update and recovery > Recovery > Advanced startup, Restart now > Troubleshoot > Advanced options > UEFI Firmware Settings > Restart

4) Touch screen doesn't work in the BIOS, you have to use keyboard (obvious?)
5) In the BIOS, if you do enable in the boot feature 'Diagnostic Splash screen' so the traditional BIOS screen appears with a prompt to press F2 to enter the BIOS then prepare for frustration . The keyboard hardware isn't detected/enabled at that point so it doesn't work.