BIOS Skip

Question

Unfortunately I don't have all the specs needed to give ya'll an accurate picture of what's going on, but last night I went to a friend's house and tried to boot BackTrack2 from a live CD on his Dell Dimension 2400. For some reason though, it was skipping the startup/BIOS/boot screen (whatever it's official name is) and never gave me the option of booting from CD. I couldn't find any direct cause of this, and he told me that it has never showed a startup screen before; ever since they had it (he's no computer whiz, but I'm sure he knew what I was talking about in this case). The other specs that I can remember right off the top of my head: 256 MB RAM 2.40 GHz Processor (I think) 160 GB HDD (Again, I think) Windows XP Home Ed. (I'm sure SP2) Any help would be appreciated. Personally, I've never seen a Dell skip a startup screen and I've been working on 2400s at my job for months now. Kind of weird... Thanks! Message Edited by roamforever on 01-28-2008 10:19 AM

RoHe · Answer

Power on and immediately start tapping F12 (don't hold the key down). That should get you to a screen where you can select "Boot from CD".

Otherwise, press F2, instead of F12, to enter BIOS setup where you can change the boot sequence to put CD first.

Ron

Majestic · Answer

Roamforever,   One additional suggestion to RoHe's advice.....  Is the 2400 hooked up to a flat panel or has a DVI connection with a flat panel.  If so, then try hooking up a CRT monitor to the system or switching the DVI connection to analog.  The reason being is that some of the older Dells with a flat panel attached or a DVI hook up wouldn't display during boot.  They would only display after Windows started loading the drivers.

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