A friend of mine asked for help reformatting a drive and re-installing windows.
The computer is a Compaq Presario 5184 (shudder).
I can't get the damned thing to let me into bios....for all intents and purposes bios seems to no longer exist on the computer.
I tried booting to windows installation cd and got an error that file i386/bios (something to that effect....unfortunately I didn't write the exact file name down.) could not be found.

I've never run into non-existant bios before, possibly the cmos battery?

I want to exhaust all options before trying to replace the battery...it's a compaq and they do't make the motherboards overly easy to see....let alone replace something on.