I need to change the bios battery on a IBM PS/note 425 laptop. On start up the batt low and time incorrect errors apear. There are 4 configeration screens . Can't find the place where you set the no of sectors and the no of heads for the hard drive. How do I get into bios setup?

On bootup you should see either Press 'DEL' or 'F1' or 'F2' to enter the BIOS. To alter the drive geometry this is usually acheived by entering the boot section of the BIOS or if present the Primary Master Settings. From here you can input the HDD geometry settings. Hope this helps.

Ditto on Peter's note above. BUT, you should have some idea of the size of your HD to begin with by going into Windows Explorer and noting the total size of the HD. Most HD's for the last 8 or 9 years have been Type 47 drives. You will need to know the number of sectors, heads. You can find this in the BIOS by looking for PRIMARY IDE or SECONDARY IDE. Then, there might be a sub-menu where you highlight the PRIMARY DRIVE and then hit return to get to a sub-menu. This is where you will designate drive type and the other information. BIOS's for the last few years have done the automatic calculaton of drive size after entering the number of sectors and heads. Also, if you have a UDMA 33 drive, make sure UDMA is enabled. If your HD is bigger then 540 MB, enable LBA (large block addressing) or the computer will not recognize anything larger. If the BIOS has a smart detect, these settings should probably be enabled..but just check and make sure.

Ditto on Peter's note above. BUT, you should have some idea of the size of your HD to begin with by going into Windows Explorer and noting the total size of the HD. Most HD's for the last 8 or 9 years have been Type 47 drives. You will need to know the number of sectors, heads. You can find this in the BIOS by looking for PRIMARY IDE or SECONDARY IDE. Then, there might be a sub-menu where you highlight the PRIMARY DRIVE and then hit return to get to a sub-menu. This is where you will designate drive type and the other information. BIOS's for the last few years have done the automatic calculaton of drive size after entering the number of sectors and heads. Also, if you have a UDMA 33 drive, make sure UDMA is enabled. If your HD is bigger then 540 MB, enable LBA (large block addressing) or the computer will not recognize anything larger. If the BIOS has a smart detect, these settings should probably be enabled..but just check and make sure. By the way, I know this is a BIG PAIN in the you know where, but if you are going to replace the battery, you are going to loose your entire CMOS set up. First, get a pad of paper and go into the BIOS and TAKE THE TIME AND EFFORT to write everything down...I mean everything. That way, when you boot up to a bare naked BIOS, you will be able to enter all the original settings. The only other thing I can think of is getting a copy of Norton Utilities and doing a system backup and then using Norton at the DOS level to write the CMOS settings to BIOS. Good Luck!

Ditto on Peter's note above. BUT, you should have some idea of the size of your HD to begin with by going into Windows Explorer and noting the total size of the HD. Most HD's for the last 8 or 9 years have been Type 47 drives. You will need to know the number of sectors, heads. You can find this in the BIOS by looking for PRIMARY IDE or SECONDARY IDE. Then, there might be a sub-menu where you highlight the PRIMARY DRIVE and then hit return to get to a sub-menu. This is where you will designate drive type and the other information. BIOS's for the last few years have done the automatic calculaton of drive size after entering the number of sectors and heads. Also, if you have a UDMA 33 drive, make sure UDMA is enabled. If your HD is bigger then 540 MB, enable LBA (large block addressing) or the computer will not recognize anything larger. If the BIOS has a smart detect, these settings should probably be enabled..but just check and make sure. By the way, I know this is a BIG PAIN in the you know where, but if you are going to replace the battery, you are going to loose your entire CMOS set up. First, get a pad of paper and go into the BIOS and TAKE THE TIME AND EFFORT to write everything down...I mean everything. That way, when you boot up to a bare naked BIOS, you will be able to enter all the original settings. The only other thing I can think of is getting a copy of Norton Utilities and doing a system backup and then using Norton at the DOS level to write the CMOS settings to BIOS. Good Luck!

I think the configeration utility is bios setup. It appears after memory test and before the starting ms dos message. It reports hard drisk size as 85 mb. Can't find an IDE screen. I dont think laptops have an IDE bus. Thanks for your help!

I just got my first laptop and it has one bay for CD and floppy drive, so i can't auto install the drivers i need. I tried copying the start disk onto c: but it won't allow me in the bios to boot from c: (tried pressing F1, F2 and del).Could you please help me to get the drivers installed. Thanks.