Can't get into Bios

I did a boo boo...I was in the bios and set the secondary IDE to none on both spaces...I thought that was why I was getting an error message on bootup...well it wasn't...I just should have had both on auto and did not think now it boots up fine but it no longer shows me the message to push F2 for setup... and I need to get in and change the secondary so it will recognize the CD Rom drive... I have tried every combination I can think of...I can pull out one of the harddrives and set it as a slave on the Primary but I do not want to do that as these are small drives and I need them to load games... yes this is a dinosaur but it still runs great... it is a Dell Opti plex and is an upgraded Win 95 to Win 98 SE so it is slow but still works good for its kind and for the purpose I will be using it for...can anyone tell me how to get into the Bios now?... got me stumped.

 

Try unplugging the machine and taking out the battery. Wait up to 30 minutes and put the battery back in. On older machines this resets the bios to default settings. On my old Compaq 5 minutes is plenty.

 

Got into Bios using this method!...thanks... but now I have an error message on boot up that says something about the 3rd hard drive failure...there is no third hard drive...only two and a CD Rom... what setting on the bios in the second IDE slot do I put it on to get it to recognize the CD Rom?... I have tried Auto and get something about "interface packet"... don't know what that means...the CD rom Works fine but the error message is confusing...I can push F1 and bypass it which is what I will have to tell the boy who will be getting this machine...to just ignore it as long as the system is working okay...more of an annoyance then anything...

 

I rarely go into bios so take this with a grain of salt. Your two hardrives should be Primary 0 (Master) and Primary 1 (Slave). Your CD-ROM should be Secondary 0 (Master).

From your first post it sounds like you have one harddrive Primary 0 (Master). The other harddrive you have as Secondary 0 (Master) and CD-ROM as Secondary 1 (Slave).

I don't think this is possible? Both harddrives must be on the Primary cable with one of them set as slave. I don't think you are getting any speed benefit if you're trying to call one a secondary IDE master.

Maybe I'm misreading your setup?

 

Sorry I guess I was not clear enough... I do have 2 hard drives...and they are on Primary 0 and Primary 1...the CD is on Secondary 0 (Auto) and it keeps coming up as that interface package message... and when I boot up it says #3 hard drive failure push F1 to continue or F2 to enter the setup... does not matter what I put in the set up on the secondary (unless I put none and it does not recongize ANYTHING) it still gives me a boot message error but does not stop the computer from working or the CD rom from operating correctly...so i really do not know WHAT to do...it is a bother is all...so I will just tell the boy about the F1 key and let him go from there...because I am afraid I will mess it up if I keep changing things...

 

Okay.