Bought a used Lenovo LT with W-10 and Lubuntu 18 dual boot installed, but after trying to deal with w10 (which I detest) took it back to revert it to W-7 which is much more managable.

In the process he wiped the HD so no more LINUX - told me to download and burn an .iso image of a distro of my choice and install that.

Easier said than done!

Downloaded Pclinuxos64-MATE-2017.11.iso and tried to boot that on an ACER Aspire which has since died - no way!

Using RUFUS 3.1.1320 burned it to a USB drive thinking that would be bootable - Nope!

Now I can't even find my BIOS boot priority menu to attempt a boot on this Lenovo; the Tech told me to tap F-12 while booting; Nope.

Tried holding F12 down... no cigar.

Went to Lenovo TS site and lo & behold, they said to tap F=1 on boot. That didn't work either.

How can I find my BIOS on this thing, and if I do how can I dual boot a LINUX OS on with W-7?

fn-f12, fn-f2, fn-f1, esc, see if there is some sort of button by the power button

On the Lenovo machines I've used, it was the F12 key to get boot options, the F2 key to access the BIOS but this changes not only from manufacturer to manufacturer but sometimes the same company will use different keys for different computers. The only ways to get accurate info are a user manual (which you likely don't have), doing an online search for the user manual of the specific machine or watching the screen on boot for the correct key. If you don't see the message telling you what key(s) to use on boot, you've got bigger problems with your BIOS.

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Sorry but I'm a cyber moron, and dont' know what "fn" means.

Your right!; There is a tiny little button next to the power switch (elongated button)about the size of a BB. Tried holding it in with the tip of a pencil while she booted up but still no BIOS. Tippetty tappy didn't work any better.

The guy I bought this thing from had no trouble setting it up and seemed to think I ought to be able to install a LINUX distro easy enough, but the only way Ive done that was using a live CD bought on line on an old Tower.
Been trying to download and boot a distro of my choosing for years now - watched U-Tube tutorials, talked with smart people who know how to do it = nothing but frustration thus far.

Was hoping someone here might be able to provide a clue - thanks for trying.
Who knows - eventually something might work!

Was thinking about searching out the manual - all i know so far is its an "idea pad". Maybe if i flip it over there will be a label somewhere (?) with particulars. I'll have to get it to talk to our CANNON printer to print said manual out. Never been able to print out of LINUX as Im told no drivers are made for linux>Cannon.

Dont know how i could have scrwdup the BIOS between the shop and home(?)

no fn key on the keyboard?
T Try holding it in with power off

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OK; I think I found it - on a label on the belly of this beast printed in a font smaller than the fine print on a government contract:

LENOVO Idea Pad Flex 15
Model (something in Chinese)20389
...
Mfg Date: 2013/09/22 (Wonder how many miles this rig has left on it?)

Just ran down and opened the users manual - sheesh!; lotta stuff I didn't know!

That little BB button is a NOVO button - and it says to push it while the puter is OFF to access BIOS.
I'll hafta try that!
Not sure what "one key recovery system" is all about though....
About time to re boot anyway- been downloading a lot of stuff and it's getting sluggish.

"Charms Bar"... That's a new one on me!
Be up late tonight studying up on this thing.

That worked - sort of. Only the device i selected wouldn't boot.

Found the Fn-key... marked in dark orange on a black key.
Tried holding that down while tapping F1 and got a boot menu to appear, but selecting the other thumb drive (i think) no Linux boot from that one either.
There must be a trick to installing LINUX on a PC as a secondary OS - but I have yet to puzzle out how to do it - and wonder if I ever will.

when you used rufus did you select "mbr partition scheme" and "target for uefi or bios"?

Depending on the age of the used computer, if gpt partition scheme and uefi target was selected during the creation of the usb using rufus, maybe why the usb doesn't boot.

Well hurrah... Sort of....

I found a little used USB stick next to the Church laptop (been using since my ACER went on the fritz). It's one of those pushbutton jobs with a green light on the butt end that flashes like a firefly when it's reading or writing data. Had kind of forgotten what's on it, so extended it and popped it in to one of the slots in back of the cooling stand that plugs in to the PC and expands the stock USB ports.
Lo and behold; according to Explorer, it contains folder:
livecd_2017111123:28 (I
Which contains folder "Boot" containing file:
grub.
Another fldr.: " containing "EFI" > file: "boot"
along with:
iso linux
autorun
autorun setup info
livecd.sqfs (1,376,472 KB)
syslinux.cfg

Now that looks interesting!

Took it out to the kitchen table where i have the Lenovo temporarily stationed while I set it up (or try to) and popped it into the USB dongle.
Then pushed the BB button with the pencil, and saw that there was another drive on the list different from the 2 already on there - neither of which would boot - so I selected that one and hit "Enter". Finally!;Another menu with run options: Selected to test drive without installation .
Shazzam! Up came a PC Linux desktop.
Try as I might,however, could not connect to our wifi modem.
Tried to install a package I'd saved on another thumb drive; it was in a zip file so I extracted it... to where I have no idea and no amount of searching could find those files. I suppose if I was smart enough to use the "Terminal" it might have found it, but I can never remember all that "Sudo-apt-get" code to do anything in that.
It seems like whenever I manage to break through one obstacle there are more waiting on the other side. Since there's not much I can do with this crippled distro - which doesn't even have a shut down button that I can find - I used the old Alt/Print screen + R-E-I-S-U-O trick, and down it went.
Sort of disappointed; did I get the wrong distro or am I just too numb to use it?
Guess i'll order a few more USB sticks and search out a few more distros to try.
Since it's for a dual boot and I'm a bit of a dummy, I need something fairly lightweight and intuitive.
Any suggestions?