Bios

Ok , I am running a Compaq Presario , Pentium III System.But for some reason i cannot find any way to access the bios configurations.I have tried virtually every ket stroke possible , But the thing is my system doesnt have a memory calculator at boot-up anyway , It just executes a batch file called essolo.Well in order to install Linux I need to change the BIOS configurations to boot from disk.Can someone help me with this problem ?

compaq will use F1, F2, or F10 as their Bios entry key as far as I remember. possibly del or esc, but not likely.

I use to work for Compaq providing support to those people willing to pay $35 to have their software questions answered (terrrible policy that I hope they changed) back in the day (w95 was new and a 266Mhz was top of the line) you could download a zip file that contained the bios if you deleted or it got corrupted. It uncompressed (if I recall correctly it was an exe that did not give you a choice of what drive to load it on) onto 2 floppies on of which was bootable that floppy built the bios controls. If I remember correctly, F10 switched you into the BIOS.

Cheers,
-D

i was using my gf's old presario yesterday try pressing TAB and a menu should come up

Well after A long time of trial & error it ended up being ctrl+alt+esc , But thank you to all who contributed.

Sometimes, a way to find out the exact keystroke is by removing the keyboard, when the halt on keyboard error is enabled, the box will prompt you with either "keyboard error press F1 to resume" or "no keyboard present enter bios [ctrl-alt-esc]" or similar messages. reboot with keyboard and enter the keystroke. This does not work for all bios'es but for some occasionally it does.

Compaq computers use F10 to get into the Bios Just need to hit it whenever you see a cursor blinking in your up right corner of your monitor. Compaq used to, I'm no sure if now they still using part of the hard drive as part of the Bios configuration. If you re partitioned your hd them hopefully your puter don't use part of the hd as a BIOS and you didn't delete it; if thats the case you will have to go to compaq website and download the softpaq that will create that partition. if you have more questions about it just post or pm me

As this system is a Pentium III then it is a fairly recent Compaq Presario so you will need to tap F10 when you see the red Compaq Logo

As for the system not performing the memory count, this can be corrected by going into the BIOS and under the 'System' heading you will need to change the 'System Post' from FAST to FULL. You will then need to press F10 to save and exit.