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Access Your Computer’s BIOS

Thursday, August 31st in Uncategorized, windows, Microsoft, tip, BIOS, reinstall windows, dell, laptop, boot from cd, phoenix, award, compaq, hp, phoenix bios, ibm by blandname | No comments

UPDATE - Many people have asked me to write an article about accessing a Macintosh BIOS, so here it is!

I helped a friend out today who wanted to reinstall Windows on his Dell laptop. When he inserted the CD into the drive and rebooted, the computer still booted into Windows and would not boot from the CDROM drive for him. Having seen this many times before, I told him to change the boot order so that he could boot from the Windows installation CD. Since he was unsure of how to do this, I have a feeling that most people would be stuck were they in the same situation. Here are the most common keystrokes that will get you into your BIOS. Once you are there, change the “boot order” or “boot sequence”, so that the CDROM is the first item. Once that has completed, save the changes and exit. Presto! you can now start the installation and proceed with glee.

Phoenix BIOS (older)

  • Ctrl+Alt+Esc
  • Ctrl+Alt+F1
  • Ctrl+Alt+S
  • Ctrl+Alt+Enter
  • Ctrl+Alt+F11
  • Ctrl+Alt+Ins

Award BIOS

  • Ctrl+Alt+Esc
  • Esc
  • Del

AMI BIOS (most common)

  • Del

IBM BIOS

  • Ctrl+Alt+Ins F1

Compaq BIOS

  • F10

Dell BIOS

  • F2

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