Hopefully this will work... would you be kind enough to either post back here success or not.  I'll also try to follow your thread. Marked it already because who knows probably someone from Dell Support will see it and remove it.  GOD forbid if a user finds out how to access the BIOS.

I can't believe dell decided to lock out the whole BIOS.. now I'm just going to question them on exactly what are the procedures to add an mSATA cache to the unit.  I can't wait until they tell me to hit F2 to get into the BIOS..

Earth to DELL support come in DELL support.

I see A08 is still posted under older versions of the BIOS - is it possible to load an older version over the newer one?  I'm pretty sure A08 worked for me and I was able to get into the BIOS prior to going to A11 and now A12

The word unlocked was used, so that was my first post.

If using Windows 8 tap F2 quickly to get into the bios. You have to be fast on the new Windows 8 systems.

Rick

Windows 8 here... as to mSATA drivers, this is what lead me to finding out the BIOS is locked. I wish to add a USER installable  mSATA caching drive to my 7720.  I have no mSATA installed yet hardware wise so no drivers yet.  I do have the latest Intel Rapid Storage Technology drivers in place. Windows 8 will run the utility, I can see both the Hard Drive and the DVD drive.  I do not have the option yet to set Intel SRT since I can not put an mSATA into the unit, nor make changes to the BIOS for it to see it.

I have this issue too.

Can't enter into BIOS (by pressing F2) or boot options (F12).

I can't even try a linux live distro... that's sad

Why?

Just give us A10 back.  But thanks for the replies. It is nice to see SOME progress .

Lets be clear.  The first step is to be able to use F2 to get into the BIOS and the second priority is to be able to "Add Device" in the BOOT tab..  When I try it in BIOS  A12 it just allows the first parameter and then closes. When I look, there is nothing added.  It totally ignores what I enter because it is locking me out. I was trying to add back in the default devices to get rid of the two power-ups to boot the computer.  Suddenly  yesterday the two  power-ups disappeared  but F2 and F12 would not work. Phoenix  Technology seems to have an adaptive boot device software scheme that is not proven usable  yet.

 Others have been able to add devices with A10.

Example:  http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/p/19483232/20263485.aspx#20263485

I got my Dell today, and it's a problem out of the box. I upgraded the BIOS because i thought it would solve the problem.

I guess i had A11 and i updated to A12

I am sorry that I didn’t notice this thread sooner, and I am sorry to read that you all are having these problems, thanks Rick for bringing this to my attention.  Here are some questions on how your notebooks on configured that may shed some light on the problem.

Did all of you notice this problem out of the box,  or did this start after updating the BIOS,  if it was after the BIOS was updated I am assuming that this was rev 11 or 12, is this correct?

In the BIOS under the advanced tab what is selected for SATA operation?  Also under the Advanced tab is there an option for IRST? Open it and what is the setting for IRST support, Entry on S3 RTC wake, Entry After and Entry on S3 critical battery event.

Under the Boot tab what is the setting for Boot Priority Order, is there settings for both Legacy Boot and UEFI Boot? Under the Boot tab is Secure Boot enabled or disabled, what is the option for Boot List Option?

Again I know I am late responding to this thread, but I will help if I can.

TB

First Thanks Rick for steering this in the right direction... next Thanks Terry for looking into this.

I have a Dell Support Ticket opened with this problem as well, after chatting with a Dell support rep they said they will escalate it and give me a call back within 2-3 business days.  With that said....

Answer to first question - Out of the Box I was version A10 Unit purchased early November and BIOS options where accessible then, proceeded to updated to A11 BIOS when it became available and that's when I first noticed that I was locked out of the BIOS, saw the A12 Version was recently available as of Jan 14th 2013 figured that perhaps this version since it came out quickly fixed the issue and updated to that version and well.... I'm still locked out.  

I was doing this to prep my system for an mSATA Caching drive which to my understanding is a user installable option.

At  least it was according to the Dell 17R SE 7720 Documentation that WAS on the "My Dell" site for my Service Tag# - as of today those links will lead you nowhere.  No Documentation User or Technical what-so-ever for the 7720 is available from DELL online so I'm glad I saved a copy clearly states how a user can add an mSATA caching drive to the bay.

As to the Second question and on - I have no access well "easy" F2 or F12 on Dell Splash screen access to the BIOS to tell you what the settings in question are.  But, If I pull the HDD I can access the BIOS and hopefully I will be able to post back the information you are asking for.

Cheers

EDIT: Answers to your other questions Terry..

As stated I have to pull the HDD in order to get into the BIOS so I don't know if this would change the outcome of what I can choose or what is shown.

But first before going to what my BIOS settings are and options a Note:

When the HDD is pulled and as stated my ONLY way into the BIOS I get the following Screen on startup if it is of any help.

On screen Yellow Statement "Boot mode set to UEFI, Secure Boot ON"

UEFI Boot:

   + Network Boot (note this is only option selectable)

Other Options:

    Setup
    Diagnostics
    Change Boot Mode Settings
    Setup
    Diagnostics
    Change Boot Mode Settings

Yes options are listed twice!

Also If I select Change Boot Mode options presented with the following

     Legacy Boot Mode, Secure Boot OFF
     UEFI Boot Mode, Secure Boot OFF

OK my settings (as stated HDD is removed only way into BIOS for me) 

BIOS Advanced Tab:

• SATA Operation
    Mine is set to [AHCI] - with available choices that I could make listed as ATA,AHCI
• IRST Support
    There is NO option listed as this to select any choices from. Thus remaining questions being asked for IRST Support options are irrelevant in my case

Boot Tab:

•  Boot Priority Order
     + Network Boot (no settings available in regards to Legacy Boot or UEFI Boot) 
        Selecting +Network Boot Options presented with options for WiFI adapter Boot or Internal NIC card Boot.
• Secure Boot
      [Enabled] with options for Enabled,Disabled
• Boot List Option
       UEFI (greyed out - can not select this option to change)

        SIDE NOTE: Other options on Boot Screen

• Load Legacy Option Rom [Disabled] also grey out can not select to change this
• Add Boot Option (if selected I get message WARNING: File System not Found)

Hope this helps and it is what you are looking for.

Again many thanks for looking into this, I'm sure others feel the same.

Cheers once again. 

Thanks Rick and Terry for the reply.

Just in case, you'll know:

With a friend of mine, we ran some Dell tests which conclued there was no problem on my 7720.

So we tried to flash again the A12 version with the Back-up, it wasn't possible, we got "error 105 command line error! 105".

Then we tried to just flash it, it occured the same error 105.

Regards

Wow!  This is exactly what I was  looking for,  some attention to the problem even if it takes some time for a final solution.  I am so happy I deleted that link out of my post above.  

My answers to your detailed  questions above are exactly the same as CybermaxX360 wrote  above.  I bought mine at Future Shop and updated the drivers before I did anything.  I believe I was delivered A10 which I flashed to A11 the same day. There were some big initial problems with A11 crashing Win 8 boot-up but it magically disappeared in about a day.   I then flashed to A12 somewhere about 16-Jan-13   and that is when I required two power-ups to boot Win 8. The first power-up would just hang like it was looking for the boot-up device so I looked and attempted to add in the HD under UEFI, Secure On  and it would not list the devices other than two Network devices that the development engineers probably  use. I have never had a problem with Legacy boot, Secure Off in booting a legacy DVD as long as F2 or F12 work.  I can always see the three boot devices there.  The default is: 1)HD bay 1, 2)HD bay 2, then the 3)CD/DVD drive ,  so you will  see "operating system not found" for which you hit "enter" twice and then it finds the CD/DVD as the last device in the list.    About two days ago the double power-up problem disappeared on its own and at exactly the same time F2 and F12 stopped working.  I had to pull the hard drive to clone my C-drive to a USB HD (2.5 inch SATA 1 TB) exact image of all partitions that   I keep as back-up  for catastrophic HD failure.  The F12 menu would then present itself without even hitting F12 by default when no drives were found in the 17R.   EZ_GIG  uses a bootable CD   ".iso" image such that WIN 8 does not lock out files  and the C-drive remains static for an exact snapshot image during the copy which takes 8 hours on a 1 TB drive.  

The flashing process does read the BIOS existing version image and saves it to the C-drive as back-up  before it loads the new image.  In fact I think it is even called " Back_up.??? " and you can see the location whenever you go backwards like A12 ---> A11 as it stops the process for your permission okay first.

One thing to note is that many users will get this problem with A12 but they will not know about any problems until they need to load a bootable CD/DVD which is usually not that often.  I would put A10 back on the download site until we get a fix, after all, we are supposed to be able access our original delivered drivers and deleting this file throws all future trust in Dell's "updated drivers" out the window.  Besides,  the diagnostic in BIOS A12 has a bug on the Intel 4000 graphics chip test that passes the extensive  Dell PC-Doctor diagnostics, yet produces an error code in the BIOS  diagnostic. A12 not tested enough?

Oh, the diagnostic that is available when you boot the machine with no HDD runs fine except it gives video memory error on HD4000 graphics which appear nowhere else in the system once it is running. This is on A11. Not sure about previous versions of BIOS. With all of this happening, A12 scares me a lot! May leave it at A11 for a while.

Hello All!

With apologies for the length of the post, I will add the following to the mix. I started in another thread with this but am not sure how to reference that thread from this comments area - sorry about the duplication. I am thinking that perhaps some of this info might help the Dell tech on this thread. Here is my original post:

What I Was Doing:

All I wanted to do was install an SSD (SanDisk Extreme 240GB) as my primary drive using factory recovery created from Dell Backup and Recovery/Recovery Media from USB drive.... I was trying to update firmware on the SSD. It requires a download and the creation of a thumb drive to which one boots after adding it in the BIOS. Ever since I tried using that thumb drive during boot (on power up it was in a USB slot with the intention of opening BIOS and setting that thumb drive as a boot device to complete firmware update) things have been a mess.

The Problems:

I have run into a situation where no matter what key I press during startup, it has no impact on the startup. Main problem is that F2 will not open BIOS. F12 does not show Boot Order.

 Here are the symptoms:

• • Cannot access BIOS or Boot Order during POST
  • All partitions on the factory 1TB hard drive now show in Windows File Explorer whereas previously only the partition labeled C: OS was shown

Potentially Stupid Things I Tried:

I discovered that if there are no hard drives installed, the system will boot to a DOS-type screen with options for Boot Order (with no drives it lists only Network Boot), Setup, Diagnostics, and Boot Configuration.

• • Setup takes me to the BIOS (vA11) but obviously with no drives showing
  • Diagnostics takes to me to a test suite which when run gives me an error on the video memory but all else tests OK (tests of the video memory from within the Dell Suite within Win 8 show no errors)
• Boot Configuration gives me Legacy, UEFI Secure and UEFI Not Secure

I also downgraded the BIOS from A11 to A08 and then back to A11 in hopes of getting back access to BIOS but no luck.

My Plea:

Can anyone give me an idea how I can recover the ability to get into the BIOS? Any guidance will be very much appreciated!

Thanks to CyberMaxx360, I became aware of this thread so I now add the latest on the continuing saga:

I finally got Dell to replace the motherboard. I should have known it would be trouble when I noticed the replacement board was refurbished and came with a BIOS of A10. The tech hurriedly installed it and left me to fix the reinstall of OS, etc. Well, turns out that the board did not have the nVidia 650M dedicated video card on board (or it was defective and could not be recognized by system). Plus when the tech put the machine back together, 2 of the 3 keyboard hold down clips fatigued so my keyboard now keeps popping up at the top. BUT F2 and F12 worked properly. I flashed to A11 BIOS and managed to reload everything.

Meanwhile I called Dell (again) and told them about the mobo (no nVidia video) and the VERY annoying bouncing keyboard so a different tech is supposed to be here tomorrow to replace board and palm rest.

Now here are some observations:

• My final goal system is 240gb SSD for main drive, 1TB 5200RPM for data drive and the 32gb mSATA as probably minor program storage (See note 1 below why mSata not for cache)
• BIOS A11 on mobo. Inability to get to BIOS or Boot Order seems OS agnostic (same problem with Win 8 and 7)
• 2nd mobo delivered and installed on A10 which I flashed to A11. New mobo gave me back BIOS and Boot Order function under A10 and A11
• In Win 7 on 2nd mobo, restoring OS and then updating all drivers worked fine
• In Win 8 on 2nd mobo, restoring OS and then updating drivers mostly OK (See note 2 below for touchpad driver aggravation). However,unless you load the Dell Support and the Dell Backup/Recovery software, you cannot get back to the BIOS through UEFI (which is I guess a software layer between OS and BIOS whereby you can make certain changes to BIOS from within Win 8). So I have left the boot configuration at Legacy ROM
• I received constant "Operation System Not Found" errors until I reformatted the mSata drive as just a basic drive. Seems the mSata drive is RAID striped to the original 1TB mechanical drive for caching which really gives amazing performance, that is until you take away the OS drive to which it is mated. Once I reformatted it the system stopped seeing it as a potential boot device and the error stopped
• I will say this - running either OS from that 240gb SSD has absolutely ruined me for any other PC!! It is SO SO FAST and does not require any of the enhancements once provided by the caching mSata drive.

Note 1: I received the Dell laptop and the SSD for Xmas. Again, desired end goal is 240gb SSD for main drive, 1TB mechanical drive for mass data storage (I have around 500gb of photographs and 100gb music). I was going to use the mSata drive as a caching drive for the 1TB data drive. However I learned that given the SSD 240gb, the caching of the data drive would offer little if any speed advantage. Further, in order to use Intel Rapid Storage Technology (iRST) I would need to use iRST as the SATA operation setting; apparently, doing this negates the TRIM function on the 240gb SSD. From my new reading, that TRIM function is quite important over the life of the drive. SO the little 32gb mSata will get used just not as a cache drive (whew!)

Note 2: When I reloaded Win 8 on the 2nd mobo, I downloaded all the drivers from the support site and stuck them in a folder on a thumb drive. Then, once the OS was restored, I simply copied that folder to the desktop and did my driver loads from there. Very speedy! Anyway, the Alps Touchpad driver loaded fine and came with the Dell Touchpad application which is, IMHO, one of the stupidest and ill-conceived pieces of bloatware to come across my desktop (I worked at HP for 8 years so I have seen my share of useless software ;-). The driver is the issue - it has no option for two-finger as right-click for shortcut menu. NONE! This is baseline functionality for many people. I found a thread on these forums that recommended I uninstall (or don't install to start with) the Dell Touchpad and its accompanying driver. Rather, download and install this driver:  TouchPad_ALPS_8.100.2020.112_W8x64U_A.zip All touchpad options show in the Mouse section of the Control Panel and you get your right-click with two finger tap functionality.

Thanks for all the help from CyberMaxx360 and I will update this thread after 3rd mobo is installed...

Today, i discovered that my dell enters into BIOS only if battery is on critical levels (<10%) without ac adapter plugged in.

I had low battery and i started my notebook, i pressed F2 and it made two beep (i assume it's due to low battery) and i was in BIOS.

It's pretty useless since i can't add a boot option (i can only insert Boot name and when i press enter it closes...).

I restarted and tried F12 option and appears: Battery remaining capacity is 3% or lower.

"Warning! Battery critically low".

Strike F1 key to continue, F2 to run setup

_

If i press F1 it boots windows, F2 enters bios.

We can Thank CyberMaxX360 for escalating this problem such that Dell is now listening . I would like to point out that this is not the only post dedicated to the BIOS problems laid out above. Here are the ones I know about:

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/p/19486769/20281824.aspx#20281824

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/p/19487332/20281274.aspx#20281274

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/p/19478980/20277410.aspx#20277410

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/p/19483781/20277405.aspx#20277405

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/p/19484403/20279145.aspx#20279145

The last one is a 17R 5720 that looks similar but could possibly be a separate Motherboard issue.