New on here: need some help please

The HDD is currently set to #6 (Internal Hard Disk Drive). If you haven't got a one-time boot menu key you'll have to enter the BIOS each time you need to change the boot priority.

This is very confusing. All I know is that when I press F2 it goes to the bios. Is the one time boot menu supposed to be different? How can I distinguish whether I've gone to the bios or used the one time key?

I've never used the one-time boot menu as I've never needed to so I couldn't say for definite but I'm guessing they're the same, one's just a quick shortcut. But if you leave your USB stick as first boot then set your HDD to second boot you can just remove the USB stick when not required and the PC will automatically jump to the next boot device in the priority list (your HDD) when it doesn't detect the USB stick, as greg has already said.

Thanks, I see what you're saying. I had to set it to USB HDD, not optical usb or flash usb as seen in the photo because they wouldn't work. I guess I'll set internal HDD first then usb HDD second.

Try using the F11 key to get the one-time boot menu.
Tap the F11 key repeatedly when the PC is booting up and see if that displays the one-time boot menu.

The Bios setup and One-time boot menu are not the same thing.
Using the One-time boot menu allows choosing a different device to boot from for THAT bootup.
It does not make any changes to the Bios setup.

DavidW7ncus said:

Try using the F11 key to get the one-time boot menu.
Tap the F11 key repeatedly when the PC is booting up and see if that displays the one-time boot menu.

The Bios setup and One-time boot menu are not the same thing.
Using the One-time boot menu allows choosing a different device to boot from for THAT bootup.
It does not make any changes to the Bios setup.

Ah, thanks for that. Will try when I get in. So what should the priority be? HDD first?

DavidW7ncus said:

The Bios setup and One-time boot menu are not the same thing.
Using the One-time boot menu allows choosing a different device to boot from for THAT bootup.
It does not make any changes to the Bios setup.

Every day's a school day. Good to know.

Every day's a school day. Good to know.

For sure! The more I lurk in SF, the more I learn and feel like I'm in kindergarten with PCs.

So what should the priority be? HDD first?

For you right now that's probably the best choice.
Personally I set my first boot device to the DVD drive.
That way, if I have a bootable disc in the DVD drive I get prompted to boot from it and get ~5 seconds to respond.
If I have a bootable disc in the drive, I probably am doing some type of recovery, repair, troubleshooting, etc.
It may add 1 second or less to the bootup if no disc is in the DVD drive, but that doesn't bother me.

I like to get and keep all documentation for my PC.
It may come in handy some day to help resolve an issue.
Here is a link for the manuals for the Sony Vaio fz38m
Sony : VGN-FZ38M manuals | User manuals for VGN-FZ38M

I found this in the Instruction/Operation Manual

What is the usb floppy disc drive? There's like three different usb bootable things in my bio. The only think that worked without me having to press f2 was the USB HDD one.

I'm presuming it's an external floppy drive connected via USB. I wouldn't worry about it as the chances of you ever needing a floppy drive are virtually zero to none.