I have a Toshiba A35 laptop with a strange problem that appeared gradually. It won't allow me into CMOS. If I press F2 on boot-up, it goes to Windows instead but dbl-clicking on any icon brings up the properties window instead of the program! If I reboot and press F1 repeatedly, Windows works normally. I tried to use the recovery DVD but if I press F12 on boot-up to change boot device, the boot device menu appears but locks up and I have to power down. Keyboard tester program says keyboard is OK; CPU heatsink was clogged but is now clean. Do I have corrupted BIOS, hard drive partitions or worse? Any ideas? Pressing F1 to boot every time is driving me nuts! Thanks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cmos

Does this computer have a CMOS battery? Are any devices connected to this computer?

Yes, there is a button cell battery soldered to the motherboard, either as an RTC or CMOS battery. The computer is about 5 years old and normally they last longer than that. There are no external devices connected to this laptop. It has a 40 gig internal HD, factory wireless modem and a DVD/CDRW combo drive factory installed that is removable from a bay. Funny thing is, Windows acts normally only if you press the F1 key repeatedly while booting. F1 doesn't do anything on the screen but somehow it tricks the laptop into booting normally. These models will shutdown when the heatsinks clog up and the CPU shuts down. This happened many times. My theory is something got corrupted when the laptop shut itself down. I am presuming it is not OS related because entering CMOS should occur before Windows loads.

"Does this computer have a CMOS battery?" Are there any computers that don't? Is the problem that the machine is prompting you to press F1? I'm not familiar with Toshiba laptops, but you may need to press F2, Delete, F10, or some other key (or combination) to enter the BIOS. It may be that your Primary slave is set to Auto, when it should be Off. Life's more painless for the brainless.

Hi Jennifer, No, the computer isn't prompting me to hit F1, I stumbled upon that as a temporary workaround to the boot problem. In fact, the boot screen gives me two choices: press F2 to enter CMOS setup or F12 to select boot device. If I press F2, nothing happens and it eventually comes up in Windows. All looks normal except clicking on icons brings up the properties window instead of the desired program. I discovered that if I press F1 repeatedly while booting, Windows works normally. That's a strange one! The other boot option is F12. If I press that, it brings up a menu of 1,2,3,4 where I can select CDROM, Hard Drive, LAN, etc., but it hangs and I have to power down. So basically, I am locked out of CMOS and the computer works normally only if I press F1 on boot up which shouldn't do anything but it does. I can't even re-flash the BIOS because I can't change the boot device. The primary adapter selection you mention would probably be in CMOS which I can't get to. Some forums suggest to corrupt the CMOS with a program like KillCMOS and let it recover with the factory defaults, but some report doing that killed their PC's permanently so I am hesitant to try something like that. Any other ideas? I have to weigh having a laptop that works with a minor annoyance vs. destroying the BIOS so only Toshiba can re-flash it.

Remove the hard drive and then see if you can enter the bios.