[Gllug] floppy disc access

[Dan Kolb]

Mark Preston wrote:
>   George F. Saxby wrote:-
> <SNIP>
>   er silly questions :-
>   does the BIOS see the floppy disk?
>   Is the floppy disc activated at boot up switched on in the BIOS?
> </SNIP>
> 
> Not a silly question, I think you might be onto something George.
> The curious thing (amongst other things) is that this Compaq Deskpro
> in question no longer allows me to access the BIOS settings on bootup.
> There does seem to be a precedent for this.
> 
> http://www.daemonnews.org/200010/adventure.html
> <QUOTE>
>   Before I installed FreeBSD on the Compaq, I remember being able to
> access the BIOS by hitting F10 at boot up but now, that function had
> disappeared. I tried rebooting my machine and hitting F10 and every
> other combination of special function keys but couldn't get into the
> BIOS as I'd done before the installation.
> </QUOTE>

Compaq stores its BIOS setup program in a partition on the hard drive. 
If you install another OS, and repartition the drive, you might delete 
that partition if you're not careful. And, well, that will then prevent 
you from getting into the BIOS setup.

You can download a Softpaq from Compaq that allows you access to the 
setup, but, I think, it's only for Windows.

Dan



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