Help - what have I done???

mizzbiz

I am in trouble with hubby if I don't get this sorted before he gets home.

We have a desktop PC running XP. It was going very slowly so I've spent the morning sorting it out (I'm semi techie). Now, the problem. I got it running fast and there was one last problem, a simple error message which I went into bios to get rid of.

Whilst in Bios I did something really stupid and I'm kicking myself now :-( I noticed the first boot device said CDROM and the Second boot device said hard drive. I changed them round, even though the pc had been booting fine. Now, I think the PC is booting to CD ROM and I can't access BIOS anymore to change them back round.

So basically, the PC switches on, CDROM whirrs but no operating system boots, nor do I have any access to set up anymore. Hubby was going to use PC tonight for some work and if I don't get it sorted, I'm going to be in real trouble. Can anyone help?

PS writing this form an old linux system laptop so no, he can't use this instead. All his autocad and everything is on the PC.

So can anyone help me get round this? EVen just to get into BIOS to turn them back around

culpepper

TRy pressing F10 or F11 or F12 or F2 or esc keys when you turn it on. One each attempt. It all depends on your motherboard manufacturer which one it would be.
One of them should let you get back to the Bios and change the sequence back.

DatabaseError

wow!
not too sure what you could have done to remove the option to get into the BIOS setup. If there is no display at all first ensure the monitor lead is still plugged in (maybe you kicked it or something?)

As you're reasonably confident, once that had failed to resolve the problem, drop off the side of the PC and find out what motherboard it uses (will be printed on somewhere). Use your lappy to find the CMOS Reset jumper, and follow the instructions to reset to defaults, and then set everything up as it should be.

Failing the finding of a manual, I'd look for a jumper near the motherboard battery, almost certainly a different colour to the others (possibly red instead of black), and spanning 2 of 3 pins, moving that jumper to span the other pin + center should reset it, though ymmv. Move ther jumper back and make everything OK.

Good Luck

tanto

first make sure that there is not a cd in the drive as a non bootable cd can stop windows from booting if boot from cd is selected
depending on the system some will let you choose boot order if you press f11 or f12 during startup but this only allows you to choose boot option for that statup
you can also try accessing the bios by keeping tapping the key to enter bios as soon as the computer starts to boot
if all else fails you can try to clear the bios by removing the bios battery from the motherboard it is the round flat battery about the size of a 2p to do this you will need to disconnect the pc from the mains then removing the battery leave the battery out for a little while then replace it and plug the computer back in and the bios should be cleared if you do this you will also have to reset the time and date as well as the battery clears that

mizzbiz

Database error: Thank you for your suggestions - resetting the jumper worked beautifully. I had some initial problems, it appears any changes to the BIOS whatsoever cause this problem to happen and initially, it still wouldn't boot with a number of errors. This means I have not been able to go into BIOS and change the date etc so I hope this doesn't cause any problems.

Anyway, XP has finally loaded and I'm off now to check all is well. Thank you so, so much :-)

mizzbiz

Just an update to say all is now well and changed date and time within XP with no problems. Just to know for anyone in future the Motherboard is the KV7 (Abit) and whilst googling to find the instructions to reset jumper, I discovered the problem with making changes to the BIOS on this motherboard is more common than would have been expected. I have no idea why this would be the case.

halibut2209

Now, delete your internet history so your hubby doesn't find this thread