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Vintage Computers Any vintage computer systems, calculators, video games etc., but with an emphasis on 1980s and earlier equipment.

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Old 28th Apr 2019, 5:01 pm   #1
TALKINGWITHPYE
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Default Compaq deskpro 2000

Hi. Can anyone guide me as to how to access the BIOS on this machine? It runs Windows 95 and pressing F5 F8 F10 DEL won't let me in. I am trying to help a friend in England by supplying him with a 650M hard drive, but I forgot about setting up the BIOS. I am in Northern Ireland.

Last edited by Station X; 28th Apr 2019 at 10:18 pm. Reason: There's no need to shout!
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Old 28th Apr 2019, 8:55 pm   #2
terrybull
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Default Re: Compaq deskpro 2000

Found this with Google.
F10 will take you to the bios settings if pressed on the right time [The moment that the Cursor is full square on the top right hand corner].
However, this is a hidden partion on your hard drive with all necessary dos utilities, if this partion was deleted or you had re-partioned your hard drive, it is lost no way to access the bios unless you re-create that partion.
if this is the case, you will need either to run the recovery CD suppled with the PC - Note each PC model has its own recovery CD you can not use any Recovery CD for any compaq. Moreover the recovery CD will reset your PC as it was the day you baught it and you loose all your data.-
The other way around could be to download the necessary files from the support site of Compaq.
In any case you need to back up all your files before proceeding with restoring you bios utilities files. This Process will re-partition your hard drive and re-create the lost hiden partion, and install all necessary files to access your Bios using the F10 key.
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Old 29th Apr 2019, 4:08 am   #3
arjoll
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Default Re: Compaq deskpro 2000

Quote:
Originally Posted by TALKINGWITHPYE View Post
Hi. Can anyone guide me as to how to access the BIOS on this machine? It runs Windows 95 and pressing F5 F8 F10 DEL won't let me in. I am trying to help a friend in England by supplying him with a 650M hard drive, but I forgot about setting up the BIOS. I am in Northern Ireland.
Unfortunately this fits into the gap between me having Compaq machines up to 486 at work, and selling Compaqs to clients when they opened up the NZ distribution channel (and even then I mainly did HP).

The 2000 covers quite a wide range of products - Pentium, Pentium MMX, Pentium Pro and Pentium II. See here for details. Because of the wide range of products (on top of processor type, memory could be either FP SIMMs or SDRAM DIMMs) you may find issues with support for drives larger than 512 MB depending on model.

HP no longer seem to have support info this model - in APJ at least. Both Product Bulletin and their website cut off with the EP/EN series from around the turn of the century. Based on what Terry has said, if you don't have the original CD your best course of action may be to clone the existing drive. It seems slightly unusual that there's no configuration in the BIOS, I'm sure our older Prolinea 486s at E&Y in the day had that. The DeskPro 386 machines needed a configuration disk though.
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Old 29th Apr 2019, 7:35 am   #4
Paul Stenning
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Default Re: Compaq deskpro 2000

Some of the earlier Compaq PCs didn't have BIOS settings built in. Instead you had to boot up from a Setup floppy disk which had the program to change the settings. I know this was the case with 286, 386 and some 486 Compaq PCs but don't know whether yours is one of them or not.

I don't know where you would get a copy of the setup disk now, but it is probably online somewhere.
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Old 29th Apr 2019, 9:59 am   #5
paulsherwin
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Default Re: Compaq deskpro 2000

I worked with some P2 Deskpros in the late 90s and they definitely had the BIOS software on a hidden HD partition.
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Old 29th Apr 2019, 10:19 am   #6
GrahamN
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Default Re: Compaq deskpro 2000

You can try this - but no guarantees, and it's at your own risk. It's a Compaq utility that accesses the BIOS on some older Compaqs, but I don't know which ones....
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