On Sat, 2006-03-25 at 15:10 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote: > On Saturday 25 March 2006 14:37, Anne Wilson wrote: > >On Saturday 25 March 2006 18:40, Paul Howarth wrote: > >> Some BIOSes specify the CD/DVD drive in the "boot order" part of the > >> setup menu, others (some Dells I've used) have a separate menu (the > >> Dells use F12 to access it at boot time) which lets you boot from > >> CD, USB etc. You'll need to poke around your BIOS menus anyway. > > > >When you boot up, most motherboards show a spash screen for a couple > > of seconds, then start checking the ram (some people switch off these > > features, but they are usually the default). At that point there are > > a couple of seconds only when a message is displayed at the bottom of > > the screen that tells you how to get to the BIOS settings. Hitting > > Delete is a common one, with F2 as probably the second most common. > > If you get to the right key in time it will finish the checks then > > open up the BIOS screens. Read through them - they may surprise you, > > and you never know when someone will ask you something related to > > that. > > > Unforch, Compaq makes that impossible as they cover all that with a > bootsplash 'Compaq' in big red letters, and you have to hit F keys > randomly, and rapidly in order to get to what they euphamisticly call a > bios, but other than clock setting and boot order on the one I have on > the bench ATM, not much else is adjustable. Oh, and fast boot or check > memory, I set that on the one time I hit it by accident, so now I have > about 7 seconds to find the magic twangers pitch. Compaq=PITA, with > broken legs. > > >In my experience the settings for boot order are usually on about the > > third page, often labelled Advanced or something similar. > > > >One thing that would be very useful is for you to make a note of the > > BIOS maker and version. Sometimes it helps people to help you if you > > can give them that information. > > > >As for why it no longer boots from the CD/DVD - it's likely that > > someone who has done some job for you on the computer changed the > > setting. Many people feel that it is safer for the default to be to > > boot from the first hard drive. > > That too, paranoia. But it keeps the kids from bringing in their games > on infected cd's & floppies. Until they learn the trick and change it > back when you're not looking... > > But we have the ultimate revenge, when we find games, porn or pie-rat > music on a business machine, we don't care who's it is, it gets > formatted & only what they need for that machines job reinstalled. The > normal user of that one is warned including a note in the personel file > the 1st time, 2nd time gets even more interesting, 3rd time discharged. > > >Anne > > -- > Cheers, Gene Thanks All - I found the bios menu with the F2 key. I had to change the default to look at the CD/DVD drive before booting from disk. Not sure how or when it changed. So I'm on FC5 now! Very easy install. FC5 - Very Cool! Cheers! and thanks for your responses - fred v. >
