Entering the Compaq Bios!

[NeuromancerIV]

I got a quick question, a customer of mine is trying to get into the bios of his old Compaq Presario 6704. The usual Compaq keystroke at the Compaq spash screen isn't working. And their webpage is useless for getting information. Please Help!

[3fingersalute]

On Compaqs you hit F10 when you get the little blinking cursor in the upper right corner of the screen after the splash screen you mentioned. If you don't get the cursor, I would think you need to download and install the SoftPaq, since Compaq's don't really have a BIOS so to speak, they put their own BIOS on a small partition on the HD. (You can get the Softpaqs at http://www.compaq.com )

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[Machine]

when the cursor appears hit f10, try all the f keys and the other usual bios stuff.''

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How do you prefer to spend eternity? Smoking or Non

[NeuromancerIV]

Thanks guys, I fear my customer may have formatted the HD (groan). He tells me this now...The softpak if installed should install the cmos on the fomatted drive won't it, I have tried to avoid Compaq's as much as humanly possible...argh!
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"Who cares about apathy?"

[techs]

the f10 setup porgram on those compaqs needs to be installed before you create your partitions. it will make a non-dos partion and copy itself onto that partition. you can reformat the primary dos partition, but if you fdisk and delete the non-dos partition you must reinstall the setup program first on the partition it creates.
If you don't want to fdisk and reinstall windows you can download the f10 setup program, which makes a bootable floppy and you can enter setup by booting to the floppy. it will save any settings change you make in the "minibios" on the mobo.

[NeuromancerIV]

Excellent!! Thanks so much! I was trying to help the customer over the phone, but when the F10 stroke, didn't work I began to worry but this is going to be beyond his ken. (man I hate presarios!!)

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"What do you mean the server's down?"

[BreakWindows]

On Compaq Presarios, you can hit ESC at the splash screen to actually see what is going on.


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= http://www.BreakWindows.com

[Sowulo]

Also...
When you can't get a Compaq to respond to F10 you can pop the lid and pull the data cable off your floppy drive. This will usually generate an error that lets you into CMOS to reset.

[techs]

unfortunately on the compaqa with what i call the "mini bios" all that will do is update the system to something like "floppy removed" and your only option is to accept or decline the changes, because the bios program is only on the compaq diagnostics partition or on a bootable f10 floppy. they changed this on newer models, to the standard type of bios, but i thought we were talking about an older compaq.

[Sowulo]

I've actually turned down jobs now and then because I didn't feel like wasting time on a piece of crap that would probably never run well with anything but a pristine factory setup. Compaq & Gateway immediately come to mind...

[iceman]

Gateways for sure! Only a matter of time before they die!