[RB211]

Cheers Dave. I'll have a rummage in the loft..

[Bubba]

In case you don't know how to get to the BIOS, I copy pasted this from another site. It's not a full list but covers the majors:

Computer or BIOS Keys to press
[Acer Ctrl-Alt-Esc
ALR PC Ctrl-Alt-Esc or F2
AMI BIOS Del or F1 or F2

Aptiva F1
AST, Advantage Ctrl-Alt-Esc
Award BIOS Del or Ctrl-Alt-Esc

Compaq F10 ( when the cursor is blinking in the top right corner of the screen)
Dell F1 or Del or Ctrl-Alt-Enter (Some require pressing reset twice )
DTK BIOS Esc

Gateway 2000 F1
Hewlett Packard F1
IBM Older models hold down both mouse buttons
IBM PS/1 late model Value Point and 330s F1
IBM PS/2 Ctrl-Alt-Ins
IBM PS/2 with reference partition Ins
IBM Some PS/2s, such as 75 and 90 Ctrl-Alt
IBM Some PS/2s when pointer at top right of screen Ctrl-Ins
Fortiva 5000 Ctrl-Alt-A
NEC F2
Packard Bell F1 or F2
Phoenix BIOS F1 or F2 or Ctrl-Alt-Esc or Ctrl-Alt-S or Ctrl-S or Ctrl-Alt-Ins

Sharp Laptop 9020 F2
Sony F3 while you are starting the PC, then F2 or F1
Tandon Ctrl-Shift-Esc or Ctrl-Alt-Esc
Toshiba Laptops Toshiba Utility
Toshiba Esc or F1
Olivetti PC Pro Shift-Ctrl-Alt + “NumericPadDel”
Miscellaneous PC's Ctrl-Esc or Ctrl-Alt and +
Zenith Ctrl-Alt-Ins

NOTE: I don't know why some of these showed up big and bold and I don't know how to fix it. Sorry.

EDIT: There seems to be a more comprehensive list here: http://www.mydigitallife.info/2008/0...puter-systems/

[RB211]

Thats great bubba, thanks..Also Dave...XP is now installed and working but althoughy I've changed the boot sequence it still wont boot without going thru all the F8 or delete messing about. No matter how I organise the sequence when I boot the machine it goes into post, beeps and then a message saying something like "Boot sequence failed, put in system disk and press enter"

[philthomas]

What is your current drive sequence ib bios ?