Howto Access BIOS

[JJDetroit]

One of the guys at work asked me to look at a Compaq Presario 575 of his, and see if there were any low=cost upgrades that would make sense for it. It's only got a Quantum HDD of less than a gig, running Win95. I want to at least put a bigger HDD in (got a lot of them laying around). But no matter what combo of jumper positions I try, I keep getting a Disk Controller Failure with the new drives. The original Quantum has only 3 pins where the jumpers would normally go, instead of the typical double row of 5. Is it possible that this PC is so old that "modern" drives won't work with it? And I can't find the right key to press during bootup to get into the BIOS, to see if I can get it to boot from a CD.

[JoeP517]

What is your ultimate objective? From Google Search: compaq key access bios is says Compaq usually uses F10. What keys have you tried to access the BIOS?

Joe

[JJDetroit]

I tried F10, among other ones, but maybe my timing was off. Will give it another shot. If I can get the PC to use a larger hard drive, I want to check with Crucial and see if I can bump the memory up to something sensible (it only has 16MB now, 4 modules used out of 5).

[viking33]

John,
By your description, I would say it's time for the scrap heap for that OLD system. Only 16 mb running Win95 is a problem right there.
Rather than spending more time and money to try to upgrade it, It would seem to be more sensible to get a more modern machine . They are pretty reasonable these days for a basic setup.

[JoeP517]

If the PC is only going to be used for mundane tasks, why not look at a new e-Machines PC usually can be had for less than $400 after all rebates. Or a re-furbished Dell machine sans monitor for barely over $300. I don't think it is worth the effort to try toi upgrade. There is almost no information when youGoogle Search: "compaq presario 575". Crucial also has no Compaq Presario 575 models listed.

Joe

[JJDetroit]

Bob,

>> Only 16 mb running Win95 is a problem right there <<

Yeah, but since I have plenty of HDD's laying around, if I could bump the memory to 64, 128, or 256 at a reasonable cost, I could put Win98SE on the PC. Not my PC, just investigating it for a co-worker.

[viking33]

John,
Well, I suppose so, if he is only going to use it for emailing or some other minor use.
There does reach a point though..................... <img src=/S/meltdown.gif border=0 alt=meltdown width=15 height=15>

[StuartR]

Old Compaq PCs needed a dedicated partition on the hard drive to support the F10 functionality, maybe this partition has been lost?

StuartR