Long delay during boot on Dell Dimension 9200 with RAID set to SATA ON

History:

Two Dell Dimension 9200 Desktops:

Machine 1 BIOS set to "SATA ON" and thus benefitting from AHCI

Machine 2 BIOS set to "RAID Autodetect / ATA"

I want both machines to use "SATA ON" so on Machine 2 have made appropriate change in BIOS and done a clean install of Windows 7 64 BIT. Having done the reinstall during the boot it gets to the message:

"Press CTRL-I to enter configuration utility"
then hangs for about 30 seconds before I then have to select the only OS on the system from the boot menu that being "Windows 7".(It will default to this if left unselected).

On my Machine 1 which has always been set to "SATA ON" there is no delay at all after the:

"Press CTRL-I to enter configuration utility"

Any help appreciated in solving this mystery on Machine 2.

Thank you

fireberd said:

Reset the BIOS on the one that is not working correctly. To reset the BIOS (CMOS memory), power off the PC, open the case and remove the CR2032 CMOS backup battery for AT LEAST 10 minutes (Intel says 15 minutes). Reinstall the battery, observing polarity, and then restart the PC and configure the BIOS how you want it. This may take care of the problem.

Apologies but I should have mentioned that I did actually do this and left the battery out for at least 15 minutes. It did reset the BIOS and I had to set the time again and various other options but unfortunately made no difference to the problem I am encountering.

Is there a changeable time delay somewhere that keeps the message:

"Press CTRL-I to enter configuration menu" on the screen

or could it be an error prior to it displaying the "Select Operating System" menu (I think it is called the grub menu). Not sure why this comes up anyway as there is only WIN 7 64 BIT on there and it doesn't come up on my almost identical machine which is working fine.

Thank you. I did start off posting on the Dell Desktop forum but no responses as yet.