[RESOLVED] how to reset bios

long story ... so i'll just cut to the chase ...

i disabled all the load vectors in the bios of my old gateway fx7024 except usb. needless to day, windows does not load. i get the error message: "a bootable device has not been detected. please refer to the product guide at http://support.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wl7miwHDD4I

i tried removing the cmos battery. waiting 24 hours. replacing the battery. no change.

i understand there is also a cmos chip that i can reset but i can't find it. can you pinpoint it in the following photo?

(virtualdr won't let me insert the photo here ... so here is there direct url: http://s1063.photobucket.com/user/Ta...ml?sort=9&o=17)

thanks in advance

One of these methods should work.

I'd go for method 1 of 3 first... resetting the default settings from within the bios itself.

http://www.wikihow.com/Reset-Your-BIOS

thanks, fink.

i can't do option 1 because i can't load into the bios. option 3 is what i started this thread about.

"3. Find the CMOS jumper. Locate the three-pin jumper on your motherboard that controls the BIOS. It will usually found near the CMOS battery. The jumper will be covering two of the three pins.
The jumper may be labeled CLEAR, CLR, CLEAR CMOS, PSSWRD, or a variety of other labels. Refer to your motherboard's documentation to find the correct jumper."

^^^ this is the problem. i don't see anything that looks like the cmos jumper. i have a link to a picture i took of the motherboard. do you see it because i don't?

I see two pins but they don't have a shunt on them. Could be on some motherboards they leave the shunt off and you need a shunt on the two pins to clear CMOS. Have you tried doing that. The two pins are left of the heatsink to cool I think the southbridge. Between that and the ITC.

i shut down the pc. disconnected both the power cord and the graphics card (it's in the way). hit the power switch to drain any residual power. removed the cmos battery. waited a minutes then shunted those two prongs for about 30 seconds.

reversed the steps and powered on. no change. error message still there. i powered down and on while hitting the f2 key for entry into the bios. no change.

What happens when you try to enter the BIOS setup using the appropriate key sequence during boot?

1 minute is not long enough for the BIOS caps to drain down.

10 minutes should do the trick. Had the battery out for about 5 minutes and did not lose any setting. A pleasant surprise for me.

F1 or F2 should get into the BIOS.

thanks, all.

i'm at work now but i'll remove the battery, leave it overnight (to be overly sure) and try again tomorrow. i did try f2 which is what the splash screen says to use enter the bios but i'll try both f1 and f2 tomorrow morning.

Also try tapping the F2 key quickly and repeatedly when prompted rather than just once or holding it down and start just before you get the prompt.. sometimes the window of opportunity is very short and does not exactly coincide with the onscreen instructions.

I'm guessing you're using a USB keyboard. Swap it out for a PS2 keyboard and give that a shot.

fink. ya, i do that but thanks for reminding me.

steve, it is a ps2 keyboard. i must be living under a rock but i've never seen a usb one ;)

Unplug and replug in the PS/2 connectors about 2 times.
That tends to clean the contacts and has helped me a few times.

It may be at the bottom of the mobo under the graphics card. That thing is ancient. I'd try the hard drive in another computer and see if it shows up as well as trying another hard drive in that one. Considering the age I suspect the drive controller may have failed.

i tried on sunday to get this working. no success still. i did notice on the screen before the error message that the install only boots from hard drive and dvd. so there was no way it was going to boot from the usb no matter what the bios said.

it seemed to me that we were finally beating a dead horse. the pc is now at the recycler. it was a nice service!

thanks again all for your time and effort.