Ok, the result, in short, was that no bios menu showed up. Geeeze. Alright, first will remove cosmos battery and let sit 10 minutes. If your still here, I do not know what a cosmos battery looks like to try & find it but will google for info. cheers
I don't know what a "cosmos" battery looks like either, but I do know what a CMOS battery looks like -- it is about the size of a quarter; it is chrome colored; and it has the part number and a '+' on one side. That is the positive side, and it should face upward. You can get them at Walgreens, Walmart, or most other stores.
"Pull out the CMOS battery, and leave it out for a while (at least 10 minutes), then install the new CMOS battery."
Anyone trying to fix their own computer who does not know what a CMOS battery is, probably should just unplug the PC and take it to someone who does. Messing around on the motherboard, like changing the battery is not for the novice. One little misstep can do ir-repairable damage to the motherboard.
Just got done. Am in the bios menu. what to boot to? The hd?
EDIT: several boot options:
1 efi device
2 hard disk
3 cd/dvd optical disk
4 removable device
The same 1st 4 names with > in front & priority afterward
last two are
>quiet boot enabled
> halt on [all but keyboard]
which ones plz. Thanks to all for helping. Am 70 yrs on very limited s.s. income. Cannot afford to send unit out. Been iside before with other pc's. same idea but different layouts and that. Jim
Last edited by JamesEJ; 31 Jan 2018 at 15:25. Reason: hard disk
CD/DVD Optical disk should be first.
Removable device should be second.
Hard disk should be third.
Not sure what efi device is. I would take it out of the boot menu if possible, or leave it as the last item.
Quiet boot means that it shows a minimal amount of info on the screen as it is booting up. Your choice to enable or disable it. I would enable it, because you'll probably get tired real quick of seeing all of the boot information.
Leave everything else as is.
Don't forget to save your settings.
Some comments:
I'll bet you can now use your factory restore disks to get a good, clean install of Windows.
- By putting CD first, you will always be able to boot from the CD whenever you want. But it won't boot from the CD unless (1) there is a bootable CD/DVD in the drive, and (2) you press any key when prompted. Therefore, I always put CD first in the boot order.
- Removable device (e.g. flash drive, external USB hard drive) should be before the hard drive in the boot order. In this way, you have a choice whether or not to boot from it, for exactly the same reasons as the CD.
- Hard drive will always boot whenever its turn comes up, because it is bootable. That's why you put it after the CD and the external device.
OOoo So boot to the optical cd/DVD drive then, right? I'll see what I can do about the order but looked like one just chooses which option then does it then. J
It's possible that you'll hit '+' or '-' to move the items around in the boot order. Or maybe there are other keys you will hit.
It is essential that you get the CD above the hard drive in the boot order. That's the one thing you have to do here.
lost the bios when trying to delete efs. Odd. Got back into the bios with a new bty removal. But lost it again after getting the order correct once when saving that order with the provided F10 method
Any ideas on how to save another way? Jim, thanks
Last edited by JamesEJ; 31 Jan 2018 at 21:27. Reason: punc + tks
Likely your CMOS battery is bad. Get a new CMOS battery.
Also, save as soon as you make a change; then save again after making another change; etc.
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