Bios Defaults

NOTE: Make sure that caps lock, scroll lock and num lock are all on.

 

- Resets all fields in System Setup to their factory default settings.
- With an individual field highlighted, resets the field to its factory default setting.
- Exits System Setup, saving any changes, and reboots the system.
- Exits System Setup, saving any changes, and continues the boot processes.

Thanks!  I have restored the defaults because I played around with the BIOS so much while trying to uninstall vista and put XP back on my computer. I wasn't sure what was what. But I still cannot boot to the cd drive to reinstall. I have talked with several techs, and vista for 2 hrs.  We tried everything.  In the end I just bought a new hard drive thinking a fresh start would help. I have the same problem. No alternative boot is possible and I don´t have a floppy drive to go that route. Any suggestions...

My daughter put vista on the dell dimension 3000 not checking the specs.  It of course did not have the hardware to back up all the graphic stuff so she did not validate it and then put it on a newer computer and did validate it.  The Indian tech rep said "no problem when it it time to validate it just don´t and you will have your  XP back." (and he sounded so sincer...) So after several attempts of trying to reinstall XP with a tech we decided to see it we could really get the XP back when the validation time was over, so I moved up the date in my bios a month. ...It seemed like a good idea at the time. Since then I get nothing but a validation page and a "you have an illegal copy etc" The hard drive was copied on the other computer so I just decided to buy a new one. With the new hard drive, changing the boot order is all you should have to do to boot from the cd drive.  The bios show the hard drive is there but I cannot boot onto an operating system cd or the cd that came with the hard drive.  I'm thinking of throwing the thing in a snow bank. When booting on the new hard drive it tells me to hit F2 for the setup and now will do nothing else...

Have you tried changing the order of the boot devices in the BIOS?

 

If you give us a list of everything you've tried, that'll avoid a lot of repetition.

 

What is your computer doing now?

 

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim3000/en/SM/syssetup.htm#wp1054094

At the stage where it says F2, try pressing F12 - on newer systems you should get a boot menu, what do you get? How old is your system?

Yes, I can get to the bios by F2 and F12 to change the boot settings, but it just bounces me back to press F1 to retry boot (it won't) or F2 to enter system settings. 

Hey Penguinspenguins, thanks for the help! As a last ditch effort I traded out an old CD drive on another computer and I guess my drive was bad, which was why it wouldn´t boot to the CD duh... But thanks for taking the time to answer me and help with the bios! 888Dorado