How to Enter Your BIOS Setup

This is for those people who want to change the boot order to install Windows 2000 or Windows XP, for example.

 

What is the BIOS anyway? It is a small chip that is located inside your computer that contains many small pieces of software. Some software allows the computer hardware to communicate with the Operating System (such as any version of Windows), while others actually check all the devices connected to the computer to see if all is "ok" as well as other functions we won't get into here.

The software portion we are concerned with is the part that allows us to set which device the computer boots from first. This is essential, as both Windows 2000 and XP need you to set the CDROM as the first device in order to install those versions of Windows.

Please note: altering the settings in your BIOS setup program can be dangerous if not done properly. This guide does its best to be as safe as possible. Please read all the steps carefully and you will be as safe as a pro!

 

1

Let's begin. When you first turn on your computer or restart it, you will see a screen similar to this or one that has a logo from HP, Dell, Gateway, etc. Note at the top left of this one it says:

PhoenixBIOS 4.0 Release 6.0

This is the company that made the BIOS software. Now at the bottom you will see:

Press <F2> to enter SETUP

On this particular computer this is the key on the keyboard that allows you to enter the BIOS setup (most common are one of the F keys or DELETE). The amount of time you are given to press this key is fairly small on a modern computer, as little as two seconds. If you miss it, you will need to restart your computer again.*

Here's a tip, press the PAUSE/BREAK key on your keyboard, to the right of the F-keys as soon as you see this first screen, so you can see which key to press to enter the BIOS setup. Press ENTER to resume the startup of the PC.
2

Now that we got the hard part out of the way, the rest is cake. Focus on this part of the screen:

We see Main, Advanced, Power, Boot, and Exit. To change boot order, which do you think we need to get to? If you said Boot, you are correct! OK, but how? Pretty easy one. At the bottom and also on the right side of this screen, we see a guide as to which keys on the keyboard perform what function on the screen. From what I see, the arrow keys make a great choice to get to Boot, so hit the right arrow key three times and let's get this done!
3
Ah ha! We are now on the Boot options menu. Again, looking at the key to the bottom, we can see how we are to proceed here. We know we want the CD-ROM Drive to be first, or in this case, on the top of the list. So, use the arrow keys to move down this list to highlight the CD-ROM Drive. Next, according to the page we want to use the + sign twice to move the CD-ROM to the top of this list.
4

Success! Here is what the boot menu screen should look like when you have it set properly:
5

Now all this is great and all, but we now need to tell that BIOS software to save all the changes we made to the boot order. This can be done on the page here, as shown.

Note the option:

This will allow us to do just that, Exit the BIOS setup and make changes take effect.

Now, lets say we made a mistake and don't know how to fix a change we made. Note the option:

This option will allow us to back out of any changes we have made, and start from scratch (with step 1 in this tutorial).

Ideally we want to exit and save changes. Make sure your Windows 2000 or XP disc are in the CD/DVD-ROM drive.
6
Now, look here! Another option to back out! Wow, this computer must think we don't know what we are doing. Well, you and I do know what we are doing so we will press Enter on the keyboard and move on and install Windows already!

* "What if none of these keys work for me?"

A good list of other ways to enter the BIOS SETUP is here.