changing my bios 1

[cmpgeek]

until i was looking at a different thread in this forum, i had forgotten you could change your bios so that it would look to the CD ROM drive first instead of the floppy... i am needing to do this so i can take Windows ME off my old system and reload Windows 98... (my best friend was convinced we had to find a MSDOS driver for the CD ROM or we were going to be stuck...

i am racking my brain here; but if i remember correctly, when you boot your PC and it goes through it &quot;checklist&quot; and counts up mgs of RAM... once it does that you press F10 <?> and it takes you there <???>

does any of this sound right? i did this once before on a PC a couple years back; but i dont remember everything and would rather not fry my extra PC if i can avoid it...

any help or suggestions would be appreciated...
thanx

 

[wolluf]

Different machines have different keys (or combinations of keys) to access the bios settings. Many will display the required key(s) on the POST screen when its booting (eg F10 as you say, or Del). Otherwise, machine/mobo documentation may have it. Otherwise here's some more to try -

http://www.bootdisk.com/txtfiles/zbios1.txt

btw

http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

will have a 98 boot floppy with CD support. You can boot PC from this (with 98 CD in drive), run format c: /q at the dos prompt (to clear ME off drive - obviously backup what you need first), then run x:\setup, where x: is the Cd drive letter (ie, you don't have to boot from CD - and in fact best not to if you want to remove ME).

 

[cmpgeek]

thanx wolluf! i feel much better doing it that way... i was learly about messing with the BIOs again; but the only other option is to leave it as the most espensive paper weight in my house. (a 'friend' of mine was supposed to clear it out and reload windows last year... he cleared it and loaded ME... not a big deal really; except that it does not recoginize its monitor anymore... it will only show 16 bit color <not sure of that terminology?>... therefore the graphics look hideous for even doing basic things...

thanx again!

 

[wolluf]

That will be the graphics card, not the monitor - and win98 might not have drivers for it either - but you just need to find them on the web (open case to see what graphics card is, or use something like

http://www.aida32.hu/aida32.php

- that might give you link to manufacturer's site too). Use Google to find drivers (manufacturer's site best if they have them, but you might need somewhere like

http://www.driverguide.com/

(username drivers, password all wheb prompted).

 

[cmpgeek]

can a graphic card just stop recoginizing the hardware like that? as far as i know he did not change any hardware - just redid the OS...

(i didnt think it was the monitor i thought maybe it was an incompatibility of ME with that monitor since the monitor was older...)

 

[wolluf]

No - what I mean is when you install an operating system it doesn't always have its own drivers for all devices. When this happens with a graphics card, Windows installs a basic default VGA driver (so machine is usable). When ME was installed, it (probably) didn't have drivers for the card (or, if it was ok originally, something has happened since to make Windows revert to VGA). In this case you just need to get the drivers yourself and install them.

PS If ME has no drivers, 98 is likely not to also.

 

[cmpgeek]

ok - i am with you now... it must be an ME issue as when i bought that computer it had 98 on it and the monitor always worked fine before it crashed... (that sounds stupid doesnt it lol)

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