Thanks for your reply
But I have done this all, no problem
I do get into the BIOS
but then then the keys pgUp and PgDn are dead, so i can't get to page 2
that is my problem
Hi
@Thijs, and welcome to the site. I've never heard of a problem like you're describing before. BIOS usually doesn't have mouse control to click into other tabs/pages... but PgUP and PgDN are also not your usually keys to navigate. The usual method is the arrow keys... right arrow and left arrow to switch between pages. Have you tried that? Then within each page, the up arrow and down arrow navigate among the selections.... again, not PgUP or PgDN.
Except for securing the BIOS with a password, there is nothing (that I know of) that can change the behavior to lock out just part of the system (page 2) or individual keys (PgUP/DN)... however, those keys may not have a purpose on any given page, so that they could seem to be dead when really there is nothing for them to control.
A couple of thoughts:
1. You could try to remove the internal coin battery. Leave it out for about 5 minutes or so and then re-install it and boot into BIOS. That should clear the Administrator password, but perhaps it will clear any other issues that are troubling you. (Oops... maybe not.
This page indicates it is much harder to change the password if it is unknown. So may not help with your problem either.)
2. There should be a boot interrupt to allow you to boot from CD/DVD... so that you could install Linux without changing the boot order in BIOS. In the Tecra, it seems that you need to hit F12 or maybe "C" (for CD-ROM) with the computer is starting to access this menu. Source:
Toshiba Support
More from Google and Toshiba:
This page from Toshiba describes making BIOS changes in older computers. If you still have Windows XP running, you might look inside Control Panel to see if an app called HWSetup is there. If so, try running that. I have sure never heard of BIOS control like this.... and what will be your options if you replace Windows with Linux? Will you be locked out of BIOS forever? This is quite strange, to me.
Cheers