Solved Need assistance entering the bios in Win 7 Pro

[FDM]

My daughter has Win 7 Professional running on a 2013 vintage Dell desktop and would like to make sure that the bios is configured to start from the optical drive when a CD or DVD is in the optical drive. She has a Macrium Reflect Rescue Media on a CD and in the event of a HDD crash or related OS failure she wants to be sure that she can boot her PC to enter the Macrium Restore feature.

She has not been able to enter the bios setup - with the Dell PC one does not see a bios setup screen during normal boot up and she is unsure when to tap F2 or F10 (the common keys used) or other key to enter the bios.

Anyone have suggestions or guidance for entering the bios?

Slow learning curve octogenarian

 

[strollin]

Here's something that may help you: BIOS Access Keys for Computer Systems (Lenovo, Sony, HP, Dell, etc.)

Basically, she should start tapping the F2 key right away if there are no banners at all for such things as Dell, or the video card, etc... If any banners are displayed, start tapping F2 after the last one clears ans a blank screen appears.

 

[Ztruker]

No need to do that. Just press F12 when starting to boot and continue tapping it every second or so until the Boot menu comes up. Chose the optical drive from there to boot it.

I prefer to have my hard drive as the first boot device and use F12 whenever I need to boot from Optical or USB flash drive.

 

[FDM]

Strollin and Ztruker,

Thanks for the response and assistance. I will have her try your two suggestions. Am I correct in thinking that if the optical drive is selected as first boot it will only function if there is a disk in the drive, if not the hard drive will open?

 

[AddRAM]

If there`s nothing in the cd/dvd drive the computer goes to the next bootable device (the hard drive) it`s fine to leave it 1st.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

If the optical drive does NOT contain a bootable disk of some type, it will be bypassed and the PC will try to boot from the next item on the menu. If all items on the menu fail, you'll get a message to the effect of not finding a system disc.

 

[Mellon Head]

If the optical drive does NOT contain a bootable disk of some type, it will be bypassed and the PC will try to boot from the next item on the menu.

I find that if I do this and have a NON bootable disk in the optical drive, my machine takes longer to boot. It's ASUS based, maybe that's why. I use Ztruker's trick of selecting the boot device when I have to boot from optical, and leave my hard disk as first boot device.

 

[strollin]

Not all machines respond to the F12 key for boot options which is why I would not recommend that option unless I knew for sure that the person's machine supported it.

 

[Ztruker]

HP uses F9. Some use Esc, some do not have the support. Dell uses F12 for sure.

 

[Mellon Head]

My ASUS board uses F8, which is just daft as far as I'm concerned. I have to be very careful not to wind up in safe mode. But I still prefer that method over setting my optical to first boot.

 

[strollin]

Pressing F12 during boot doesn't get you access to the Boot menu on My Dell laptop.

 

[Ztruker]

Try Fn+F12.

 

[UsernameIssues]

Pressing F12 during boot doesn't get you access to the Boot menu on My Dell laptop.

It should, but you are not alone. Here is a person with the same model Dell that you have: Problem with BIOS at start up in Inspiron 15 - General Hardware - Laptop - Dell Community

 

[FDM]

Many thanks to all the posters - very useful info

 

[Ztruker]

Pressing F12 during boot doesn't get you access to the Boot menu on My Dell laptop.

F12 should work though. I did find this post:

One thing that seems *very* clear is that the timing of getting both to “Setup” via the F2 key and the “Boot Menu” via the F12 key appears to be extremely critical. It’s not the greatest thing to have to deal with if you are in the process of troubleshooting system problems.