Set up BIOS to Boot from CD-ROM or DVD-ROM Drive

Access of BIOS depends on the vendor and manufacturer, lets know how to access BIOS on various computers.

Alphabetically ordered

• AMI/Award: Del and some times Ctrl Alt Esc
• AST Advantage,Tandon: Ctrl Alt Esc
• Compaq: F10
• Dell: Ctrl Alt Enter and some times Del
• Emachine: Tab
• Gateway Systems/Phoenix BIOS: F1
• HP: F2
• IBM: With reference partition-[Insert] during boot or need reference disk and ADF disk for setup or some times Ctrl Ins works
• IBM ThinkPad: F1
• NEC: F2
• Olivetti PC Pro: Ctrl Alt Shift Num Pad [Del]
• Phoenix: Ctrl Alt S or Ctrl S
• Sony Vaio: F2
• Tandon 386: Ctrl Shift Esc
• Toshiba: Esc
• Toshiba, Phoenix, Late model PS/1 Value Point & 330: F1
• Zenith, Phoenix: Ctrl Alt Ins

Moreover some computer uses Ctrl Alt and some Ctrl Esc during boot to enter BIOS

How to set boot option?

When you gone through many installations of Windows; you need to set a computer to boot from CD/DVD-ROM drive. After getting into the BIOS, you can set first boot device to CD/DVD-ROM drive, but again it depends on the version of BIOS is installed on your computer. I'm giving procedure of setting boot options using popular BIOSs.

AMI Boot Options

1. BooT Option
2. Boot Device Priority
3. First Boot Device » CDROM
4. F10 to Save » Exit

DELL Boot Options

1. Boot Sequence
2. Select 1 for CD-Rom by pressing -, /; press Space to enable if disabled
3. Save Settings and Exit

HP Boot Options

1. Boot Device Proiority » Press Enter
2. Down Arrow to select ATAPICD-ROM.
3. F10 to Save » Exit