Hi there, could anyone please teach me how to boot from hard disk? Currently i want to install win XP but i only could boot from hard disk instead of cd-rom because the settings was set to boot from hard disk only. The laptop is Toshiba Satellite A20 & the BIOS settings had been locked by supervisor password. Any method for me to boot from hard disk like using FDISK and then install it from the cd-rom??? Urgent... Thanks.

What version of Windows are you running now? And who locked the BIOS? Apparently it was done to prevent tampering with the settings. There are ways around that, but I think an explanation of what you're doing & why should be given 1st.

Try pressing the F12 key when the Toshiba script shows on the display. You should see either a list of boot devices to select from or some Icons to choose from. If you have Icons, use the right and left arrow keys to select the CD and then press the Enter key. If this method doesn't work you will need to change the boot sequence in the BIOS. To enter the BIOS, press the Esc key when the Toshiba script shows up on the display. You should then get a message to press the F1 key to continue. Press the F1 key and you should be in the BIOS. The Boot sequence is on Page 2 of the Bios settings on many Toshibas. To get to page 2 press the page down key. Make sure you follow the screen prompts because your system may be slightly different Gratis - Comp_Geek

BTW - If BIOS is password protected, the only to reset this is to remove the CMOS battery from the mother/main board inside the Laptop. This is best left to someone familiar with the inside of a Laptop. Remove this for 30 seconds and replace. This will factory default your BIOS. (Battery looks like a giant watch battery.) Good Luck- Gratis - Comp_Geek

Hi, i'm using Windows XP Home Edition SP1. My friend borrowed the laptop to me. I upgraded it to SP2 and notice that it became slow so i removed it and some software cannot be use & there is a notification at the status bar which is very annoying. So i decided to do RECOVERY but when i asked my friend for the CD, he told me no such disc or forgotten where he put the CD and yet he had no idea about the supervisor password. I already tried several method like removing CMOS, press F12 but it didn't work. I came up with this idea... i get the hard disk out and delete everything inside... making it RAW cause i thought that the boot up would not detect hard disk and will boot from the CD-ROM but i was wrong. When i put in the blank hard disk and power on the laptop, it showed "please insert system disk and press any key when ready"... Now i'm stuck and trying to find solution... Please help me if anyone know how to make the hard disk bootable to install windows XP. Thanks.