Inspiron 5100 Cant get to BIOS (Have tried many things from forum)

Question

Inspiron 5100 Original Phoenix A04 BIOS Original OEM Win XP Pro with current updates 2 - 512 sticks 333 memory   I can not get to BIOS.  Currently set up to boot from HDD & I need to boot from CD. F2 & F12 do not work at boot, apparently this happend after I set a system password & HDD password.  A keyscan from the OS shows the keys are not stuck & do operate when pressed. I also tried Fn+F1 & Fn+F3. On boot, any combination of keystrokes I try will not work before, during, or after the 2 password screens come up. I pulled the AC & battery over night, then put back in.  No difference. Here is a good catch 22.  I can not get it to boot from a CD to install the A22 BIOS. I pulled the HDD & booted, hoping to get it to boot the A22 CD.  After the system password, it goes to a Broadcom utility that tries a network boot.  If my network is plugged in to the NIC it gets an IP from DHCP, but then fails to find an operating system.  If my network is unplugged it aborts and fails to find an operating system.  Esc, and several F# commands do nothing at this point, or start the Broadcom utility over ad infinitum.  It does not try to boot from the CD. I have tried putting in the 2 memory sticks that came with the computer, both, single, & in combination with new 333 sticks & original sticks.  No difference. I am tempted to play with the Boot.ini, but do not know if I might just end up with a real mess then, as this is my everyday work computer. Oh, but for the old sram & battery bios settings where you could pull the battery & bing it was reset.   Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

bacillus · Answer

hmm, are you sure your cd is actually bootable as cdrom usually comes before network in the default bios boot order.

alexander_monda · Answer

Sometimes the obvious is not so obvious.

There was a problem with the boot disk. I made another one ---- But----

With the HDD pulled it now boots to CD, but when the flash (A22) update starts it says that the supervisory password must be cleared and aborts the update.

How can I clear the supervisory password when I cant get to the bios, and I cant upgrade the bios to get to it?

Any suggestions appreciated.

dallascowboyswo · Answer

You will have to call dell to get a master password if you can not remember it. By the way. PC2700 333mhz memory will only work with bios version A31 and beyond.

Inspiron 5100
Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.66GHZ
512 MB RAM
32 MB MOBILITY RADEON 7500C
40 GB Fujitsu HD
QSI CDRW/DVD SBW-242
Broadcom 440x 10/100 Integrated NIC
Dell Wireless 1350 WLAN Mini-PCI card
BCM V.92 56k Modem
SigmaTel C-Major Audio
Bios ver. A31
Win XP Home SP2
pur. Jan 2004
WRT54GS Linksys router
ZoneAlarm Pro ver 5.1.011.000
Norton SystemWorks Premier ver 9

alexander_monda · Answer

I do know the password, the problem is that I cannot get to the bios. I have the bios set up to password protect the computer & the hdd. When I boot, the first thing it does is ask for those. I enter those, then it goes to the boot to OS choice. (I have 3 OS on the hdd) I can then get to the OS I want OK, in fact I am posting this from the XP Pro partition. The problem is that I cannot get to the bios to change anything, or update it. I have tried the 'F' keys at all points during boot. After I made a new CD, if I pull the hdd, I can get it to boot from CD. If I try to upgrade the bios, it says that the master password must be cleared and aborts. I am using 2 512 sticks of 333 2700 no problem with original phoenix bios. I do have the 2 original factory installed 128 memory sticks, but installing them does not help.

Ed C · Answer

Try removing one stick of RAM out, that is IF you have 2 sticks installed. That should bring a screen saying the RAM has changed and give a option to press F1 to continue or F2 to run setup. PRESS the F2 key. You should now be able to remove the BOOT and HDD passwords.

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