Changing the boot order on PC

Gemmzie

I tried to do this with my old external hard-drive and couldn't get it to work, so am asking for some help.

I want it to boot from the internal hard-drive but if the WD is plugged in then it tries to boot from that which is useless.

I think I have to change it in the BIOS but not sure what to change.

Help please

cfbc

Gemmzie wrote: »

I think I have to change it in the BIOS but not sure what to change.

Help please

Gem,

You are correct, you have to go into the BIOS and change the booting order. What motherboard do you have and then that should give us the process.

It is quite easy to do, press delete when booting up and that will/should allow you into the BIOS settings (hopefully), if you miss this the first time, press CTRL-ALT-DEL to reboot again...

Let us know the M/B you have....

Gemmzie

How do I check which motherboard I have? Does somewhere in System tell me?

totalsolutions

MB not really relevant its BIOS is Pheonix or ??? (escapes me) Just goto the Boot Menu along the the top.

Gemmzie

This is driving me nuts again. I can't get into the BIOS with the hard-drive plugged in and without it in, I can't change it

thomas01155

http://www.inventio.co.uk/getbios.htm

Acer Ctrl-Alt-Esc
ALR PC Ctrl-Alt-Esc or F2
AMI BIOS Del or F1 or F2

Aptiva F1
AST, Advantage Ctrl-Alt-Esc
Award BIOS Del or Ctrl-Alt-Esc

Compaq F10 ( when the cursor is blinking in the top right corner of the screen)
Dell F1 or Del or Ctrl-Alt-Enter (Some require pressing reset twice )
DTK BIOS Esc

Gateway 2000 F1
Hewlett Packard F1
IBM Older models hold down both mouse buttons
IBM PS/1 late model Value Point and 330s F1
IBM PS/2 Ctrl-Alt-Ins
IBM PS/2 with reference partition Ins
IBM Some PS/2s, such as 75 and 90 Ctrl-Alt
IBM Some PS/2s when pointer at top right of screen Ctrl-Ins
Fortiva 5000 Ctrl-Alt-A
NEC F2
Packard Bell F1 or F2
Phoenix BIOS F1 or F2 or Ctrl-Alt-Esc or Ctrl-Alt-S or Ctrl-S or Ctrl-Alt-Ins

Sharp Laptop 9020 F2
Sony F3 while you are starting the PC, then F2 or F1
Tandon Ctrl-Shift-Esc or Ctrl-Alt-Esc
Toshiba Laptops Toshiba Utility
Toshiba Esc or F1
Olivetti PC Pro Shift-Ctrl-Alt + “NumericPadDel”
Miscellaneous PC's Ctrl-Esc or Ctrl-Alt and +
Zenith Ctrl-Alt-Ins
NOTE: Some new motherboard designs have a jumper that disables access to the BIOS. Please read the motherboard manual to find out how to enable access to the BIOS.

Gemmzie

I can get into the BIOS but not when the external hard-drive is plugged in because the computer is trying to boot from it!

thomas01155

Well take out the external harddrive then change the boot order in the bios to first hd rather than the usb.

Gemmzie

When I go into the BIOS without the external hard-drive plugged in, it doesn't show! So I can't change it

totalsolutions

check you don't have a master/slave conflict, then at the right time press DEL key or F2, normally shown on screen or about the time of the bleep, there is only a two second interval when you can do this and timing is critical.

Gemmzie

That's not working either. It's F1 on my computer, it's an HP.

I've found another method which seems to have worked, disabling the USB in the BIOS.
I'm hoping that now it'll let me into the BIOS with the hard-drive in so I can change the boot order and then turn it back on.