I have never worked with the 9600 series, but I can tell you that this is a
sour pickle.  Bob is right that you press F10 when the cursor appears in the
upper right-hand corner, but what you haven't mentioned is whether or not
your are replacing the primary drive, or adding a secondary drive.  If you
are adding a secondary drive then pressing F10 on boot will work and you
should be able to do as you need to in the BIOS.

If, however, you are replacing the primary drive, here is what you need to
do.  Put the old drive back in the system as the primary drive by itself.
Boot the system and get into the BIOS by pressing F10 when the cursor
appears in the upper right-hand corner.  The first screen in the BIOS should
give you the option to make configuration diskettes.  Scroll down and select
this option.  You will need anywhere from two to five floppy disks.  Follow
the instructions for making the configuration diskettes.

After you make the diskettes, remove the old hard drive and put in the new
hard drive by itself.  Boot using a Win95/Win98/Win2000 floppy.  Fdisk the
drive but do not format it.  Next, boot using the first of the configuration
diskettes that you created.  In the configuration program create a
diagnostic partition on the new drive (there should be an option for this as
well).  Now, reboot using a Win95/etc. floppy again and format the new
drive.  You can now install your favorite operating system.

Is this a pain in the glutes:  You Bet!!  Is this the only way to do it:
You Bet!!  The only other option would be to download the ROMPaq from the
Compaq web site using another computer to create the configuration diskettes
from there.  The steps you have to take with the new hard drive won't
change.

Good Luck!

Kyle Elmblade

From: "Bob Wright" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, September 01, 2000 10:19 AM
Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] COMPAQ BIOS


> At 08:40 AM 09/01/2000 , you wrote:
> >How do I go about getting into the BIOS of a COMPAQ Presario 9600
series???
> >
> >I was working on a friend's computer the other night, installing a HD,
and
> >the only time it came up was when It didn't recognize the HD.
>
>
> I believe you Press F10 when the little square moves to the
> top RH corner of screen during the post phase.
>
>     Bob Wright
> The NOSPIN Group

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