I'm having trouble getting into the BIOS to tell it to boot from CDROM.

Guides all over the internet say that you just hit ESC and then F1 and bios will open.

Well, for me, I hit ESC and it says

Press [f1] key for default setting.


I press it and it boots Windows XP.

How can I boot from a CD on a toshiba sattelight laptop?

F2-F12 do nothing, and there is no DEL key on the keyboard.
Thank you!

EDIT] I notice theres a HWSETUP in the control panel of this thing.

It has boot password, boot priority (to set what drive loads in what order, etc) and wake on lan settings.

This is how you do the bios? So will by installing linux will this make my computer unworkable (since this control panel seems to be the only way to access bios)?
- jon

The machine on which I am writing this is a Satellite Pro 4300. I've run everything from SuSE 7.2 up to SuSE 9.1 on it with increasing success - support gets better. Although slow and with new display hinges and hard drive, I can hardly fault this machine or Linux support.

Machine is supplied with Windows 98. I'm set up to dual-boot, although it's a very long time since I've booted Windows. (I can access the Windows partition from a simple KDE desktop icon.)

Now - the secret that you may be looking for is:
* Insert CD/DVD
* Shutdown.
* Press Power
* Press <F2>
* Select boot medium from menu!

Thankfully, you don't actually need to get into BIOS. If you should ever need to do so, use the Windows tool (assuming that you keep a Windows partition).

I'm on a Satellite Pro A10 - to get into the incredibly limited BIOS, I hold down F12 on startup. This interrupts the startup and brings up a row of icons, one of which is to boot from cd/dvd.

But I notice that you haven't told us your model - there are probably as many different ways of getting into the BIOS as there are laptop models. Make it easier for us and tell us what you are using.

I've found out this specific brand of laptop WILL NOT boot from anything but the recovery CDS.

(When I did try, it'd sit there for about 2 minutes and finally it'd revert to the HDD cause the XP would load up... (couldn't reconize it as the recovery CD so it gave up? who knows)

I also noted on the package of recovery cds it said that intterupting the reinstall process will irreversably damage your computer. (Why? Something super important get installed with those?)

I've tried booting from WIN98 / WIN2K / WINXP (this laptops recovery cds install XP BTW, but a normal xp copy wouldnt boot) and 2K3 trial cd

Nothing would boot, not even knoppix.

I ran the original CDs (there is 3 of them) that came with the laptop and the first CD basically created the partitions and then installed something (it was all in a dos-like screen, maybe the bios firmware?)

Then it asked for the second CD which was basically norton ghost (had their symantec logo and toshiba logo and it said restoring (had a kind of GUI like screen, 3.1 type gui with a funky background pattern)

There was all kinds of info in one window including something mentioning something like:
D:\blah\something.gho

Norton ghost if you ask me

This seems like a pretty proprietary way of doing things and if I had my camera batterys charged I'd even take a picture of this...

It's obvious this isn't a good laptop for supporting standards ;p


For note, it's a sattelight pro 5005 series laptop [thats what the restore cds said]

XavierP: I tried F2 and I get those ICONS too -- thats when I selected the CD (the 2nd option) (with all those several diff os's) to have it sit there and eventually revert to boot from HDD

(Additionally I tested the first option (with a bunch of CDs stacked (platters?)) apparently it loads from HDD immediately, that's not the one)

Luckily this is NOT my laptop, but a friend of a friend who wanted me to reinstall cause stuff kept crashing and I reccemended linux. She said "oh sure, all I use is to connect to the net" and I ran into trouble.

I talked to her today and she said that it'd be fine if I just reinstalled windows cause she wants everything to be "clean" like when she got it. I'm doing this as I speak.

Apparently the newer model of this line of laptops has gone proprietary (bigtime!)

Sorry for troubling you all,
sorry for my crappy wording of this post... my thoughts are kind of jumbled and i've edited this at least 7 times to try and get it easier to read... i'm giving up now... I'd have to rewrite from the start to make it an easy to understand post, sorry.
regards,
jon

Wow - that sounds incredibly frustrating. Which model is it? that sounds like one to avoid.

On my Toshiba Satellite, I couldn't access the bios either. Solution was to open the Toshiba Console program in winders and find the option to change the system boot priority. Mine was set to boot the hard drive first, so I just changed it to look at CD first. Works for me.

I have a toshiba 5205-s705. I run it dual boot. I had to change it in the toshiba hardware settings from within windows to boot to cd then hd. After I installed Suse I changed it back. In the toshiba hardware settings it will only go network>cd>hd. not cd>hd. The network option takes to long to to get to the cd boot option everytime, So I just put back to default after I have linux installed. Suse has a LOT of toshiba functions built in. the toshiba acpi, fnfx to use your fn keys. I have tried other distros and none seem to support toshiba laptops as well as Suse. Just my 2 cents.

Lee

The laptop is now in the posession of the original owner, with the handy dandy factory restored install.

I tried setting boot priority in the control panel of windows to do boot from CD before HDD.

Again, Like i stated it'd sit there forever and I'd hear the CD spinning (remember i tried several diff os's... 98, 2k, 2k3, xp, redhat fedora, knoppix, debian)

It'd just after about a minute revert to the HDD cause it didn't seem to want to boot any CD except the original recovery CD's

I'd stay away from that model of laptop for your linux needs (or the need to load any OS other than what came on the restore cd)

- regards

Just my 2 cents worth as well. I'm running Suse 9.1. It's the third distro I've tried and it seems to work except for one thing I've already posted. I have to turn off ACPI in GRUB or it won't start and... it works, but the sound is somehow associated with ACPI, so the sound doesn't work. I'm just patiently waiting for the next kernal. Maybe it'll correct the problem. The problem developed after running updates after installing 9.1. I had sound and all kinds of good stuff, but no 3D Nvidia. Like I said, updated, got Nvidia 3D and lost sound for now. Other stuff working fine This is a Toshiba Laptop 5005-S507 Dual Boot (for now) with XP.


Kevin

i didnt read everything u wrote but i have satellite 2450 - S240

i wanted to install linux on it .. i called toshiba in my country and they told me if u want to boot from CD just Press "C" on the start up
and it worked!


and im on my laptop now running Linux!!

Toshiba A25-S207 - attempting to dual boot Mandrake 10.1 / Windows XP

I've been scanning the boards to see if anyone has a good solution to this problem. The bugger just doesn't want to boot from the CD. Is it really possible that it will only boot recovery CDs? That seems odd.

Have set the boot order from the BIOS with no effect. Skips to HD
Have set the boot order from the Toshiba Console with no effect. Skips to HD
Have tried holding the C key with no effect. Skips to HD
Have checked the CD disk to make sure it's correct. It's correct.

I wonder if it has something to do with the drive? TEAC DW-224E-A

Any more thoughts would be appreciated. Thnx
-ploosh

Look on the Toshiba site for your model and it will guide you through it. For me, I just hit "esc" and it takes me into the BIOS. I'm not familiar with your drive, so can't answer that one, sorry. Are you certain the CD you're using is bootable?

I'll poke around on the Toshiba site.
I'm not certain the CD is bootable. This might be a newb question, but is there anything required to make it bootable other than the iso file?

Yes, you need to burn the file as an "image." What program are you using to burn?

Just using whatever the default software is. Zilla and Drag'n Drop are on here. If there's a good download you reccomend, I'll go looking for it. Thnx for your help so far