I have been asked to fix a HP Pavilion s7610.uk. It needs XP MCE 2005 reinstalling. Unfortunately, when XP first loads it stops recognising the USB keyboard. There’s often a setting in the BIOS to fix this. The splash screen at the start says to press F1 (at this point the keyboard does work). This does not work. Which is the correct key?
Paging drachillix.
Del doesn’t work either.
Maybe f2? Otherwise look up its manual.
Don’t hold F1 down, tap it repeatedly.
F2 F11 and F10 have also been used for BIOS access on some HP motherboards.
Usually I just plug in a PS2 keyboard
This. The reason your keyboard doesn’t work may be because it’s a USB unit and the USB interface isn’t yet activated at that point in the BIOS POST.
I keep a PS2 keyboard attached to my XP for just this reason. It sits behind the computer, but comes in handy sometimes.
a PS2 keyboard is good for when you want to enter BIOS.
i have a PS2 keyboard connected to a dual boot computer so i can direct the boot loader away from the default. once USB is enabled then i log in with that.