New HP dv6 laptop and Knoppix

[Michael Nolin]

--- On Sun, 12/13/09, Michael Nolin <michaelnolin at yahoo.com> wrote:


> The laptop I bought the kids for Christmas arrived and it
> did not boot windoz 7. After an hour and a half on the phone
> with HP tech support I got a case# and an order number for a
> new hard drive due to arrive on the 17. HP's diagnostics
> test 'hard drive:failed'.  
> 
> The BIOS on this laptop seems pretty weak: F2 'run system
> diagnostics' RETURN run windows normally. I had to remove
> the hard drive from the laptop to get the knoppix CD to run,
> I tried 5.0, 5.1 and finally 6.01 which worked.
> 
> Perhaps I can upgrade the BIOS when I get a working hard
> drive? can I find a similar discussion in the archives? I
> checked last months but cannot remember any particular
> discussion.
> 
> I did not originally intend to dual boot this laptop but
> now I fear this weak BIOS (if it is actually the BIOS I'm
> looking at) will lead to certain data loss or removing the
> hard drive to recover any data which will have to be done on
> another machine. 

reviewing (for the 4th time) hp.com/go/techcenter/startup and additional frantic F9 F10 pressing I was able to get to the BIOS configuration and change the boot order, to CD/DVD driver first and bad hard drive 2nd. The previous screen with 'F2 diagnostic' RETURN continue startup was effectively masking the BIOS I was expecting which can be accessed after pressing RETURN and pressing F10 quickly and frequently. 

Mike

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