F12 Not Working to Get to Boot Menu

Have you looked in the BIOS under advanced to see if the F keys are set to enabled or Multimedia? Should be set to enabled. In a pinch you could also go into the BIOS and change the boot order. Do that with the USB plugged into the system.

I usually just shut the entire system down, then press the Power button and immediately start pressing the F12 key rapidly until I end up at the boot menu. It’s not elegant, but it’s effective, especially for systems that have already gotten too far through the boot process by the time the display lights up.

This Community,  in particular- this forum - these post just saved my rear- end! On top of that I learned a few things! Thanks Guys&Gals

didn't think it would work but it did

I have a Dell M4700 upgraded to Windows 10 about 6 months ago.  Now it won’t boot.  I tried the f12 key many times to try to get to the one time boot menu, but the menu never comes up.  Only preparing one time boot appears in the upper right corner in yellow.  It stops there with the Dell logo and goes no further.  I also tried f2, and F4 on boot up to get into diagnostics and setup.  Same thing.  Stops at the Dell logo preparing setup.  The little white line under the Dell logo goes about 3/4 the way across the screen and stops.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Mine Inspiron 24 5420 AIO bought recently. Since then F12 key not working by trying all possible methods

@JOcean​ Sir I am not getting bios since f12 is not working . Guide me pl how to sort out the issue

@shanknar​ Try pressing F2 instead and if you are connected to the Dell Pro Wireless Keyboard KM5221W, press Fn+F2. If that does not work, then this support page help as it explains how to access the BIOS from Windows.

@Dickydo2​ Mine is now doing this did you ever get an answer?

md
:manik udhin

@jphughan​ 

@Dickydo2​ mine is exactly the same, did you resolve this issue?

No not really  Dell need to be more proactive to resolve issues

I was having the same problem and tried many things, and finally got it to work by spamming the fn key I wanted immediately after pressing the power button. Seems like if the server is running for a little while it can no longer accept fn keys in that bootup page.

@jphughan​ 

I found out that after upgrading w10 to w11 I no longer see the Press F12 for more options.

It was because the BIOS Post Behavior got set back to zero seconds so rapidly repeating F12 after boot, even before the Dell logo appears was the way to get to BIOS.

Then I had to turn off secure boot to get boot device options to appear so I could boot from USB.

@PReine​ Hmm, that’s the first I’ve heard of that issue. What model system do you have? I don’t see how a Windows OS change would affect boot-time behavior that’s controlled by firmware. But maybe there was a BIOS update queued to run during the same restart cycle as the Win10 to Win11 upgrade? Even then though, BIOS updates don’t normally reset settings, and even if they do, I don’t understand why disabling Secure Boot would affect the ability to access the boot menu. On every Dell system I’ve used for years now, including recently, I just rapidly tap F12 from the moment I press the Power button, even before anything appears on the display, and it’s worked. But I certainly haven’t used anywhere near all of Dell’s PC models.

In any case, thanks for posting this and the workaround you found in case anyone else encounters a similar issue!