Saving BIOS Boot Settings

We took our laptop and desktop to a computer maintenance company to transfer the data from the laptop to the desktop (the laptop had crashed and would not reboot and we wanted the data before we did a recovery on the laptop). When we got the desktop back it has been giving us the problem below. Unfortunately we had such a bad experience with the maintenance people that my husband REFUSES to call them or return to them to fix this and doesn’t want me to either (I’ll spare you the horror story, I am just choosing my battles wisely!). Bottom line…here is the problem.

The computer will not boot to the hard drive. When I turn it on I get an error, something along the lines of ‘drive not found.’ So I restart and enter into the BIOS menu. Under the Boot settings, I’ll rearrange the priority order of booting to Hard Drive first, save, then exit. Then it boots normally. The issue…these setting do not save, I have to do this EVERY TIME I turn on my computer.

Also, sometimes when I enter into the BIOS menu, the hard drive is not even listed as an option to boot from. When this happens, I usually just hit Ctrl/Alt/Del and restart. The weird part is when I do this, I do not have to re-enter the BIOS menu, it will automatically boot to the hard drive, even though the BIOS wasn’t set to that. But this only works after I enter into the BIOS and the Hard Drive is not listed.

I assume that the maintenance folks changed the setting somewhere in order to do the data transfer, I just don’t know what they did or how to fix it.

So now what do I do? How can I permanently save the BIOS settings? I appreciate any help anyone could offer. I just ask that you speak in layman terms (aka dumb speak ) as I am not the most proficient in computers! Thank-you!

 

Hi,
when you select "Save and exit BIOS ", you do press the "Y" key to say yes, right?
assuming you do, I would try replacing the battery on the motherboard.
it's very easy, it looks like a nichel (5 cents), take the old one to radio shack and get another one just like it.
hope that helps, good luck.

 

I took the battery to Radio Shack. They tested it there and said that it was still good. I went ahead and bought a new one and replaced it. But, it did not work. Does anyone else have any other suggestions?

 

Yes, a loose connection or the information that is being reported to the BIOS by the drive is not correct. You should run the utilities of the drive manufacturer. You should see the drive's model number (and maybe the manufacturer) in the BIOS. Put the model number into a Google search and go to the maufacturers website to find their utilities.

The drive's MBR (Master Boot Record) may have been changed by reconfiguring the drive setup with the backup drive. In other words, when the laptop drive was connected into the desktop, the boot information for the desktop's drive was changed.

Backup data on the drive before you make any major changes, but the drive's utilities may be able to repair any problems without drama or direct you to the source. Backup anyway...

Matt