BOOT ISSUE - I have to hit ESC

[BudPytko]

Computer will not boot on it's own. I have to hit "esc key" and select what drive to boot from. After this it is OK until I shut down & attempt reboot.

I stupidly caused the problem by watching a u-tube vid telling how to go into the config file and changing some things to make computer faster.  Too good to be true but I fell for it.  I assume I changed sometime in the Bios setup that I can not correct.  I did try a complete restore of WIN 7 and that of course didn't help the Bios.  

I attemped going into the recommended precedure in the HP Support Assistant to repair the Bios but that procedure will not work on this model (P7-1148p) desktop.  Can anyone tell me how to repair my screw-up and re-install the correct BIOS?  Thank you for your help.

[BudPytko]

Sorry---posted in wrong forum!  Guess I did not. Forum selections are tough to figure out....

[mdklassen]

>  I assume I changed sometime in the Bios setup that I can not correct. 

Enter BIOS SETUP, and find "Load SETUP default values".  That should "undo" your changes.

[BudPytko]

I have already tried this - more than once - Didn't help.   Thanks anyway.  I would have thought that we could download a (new or replacement) BIOS from HP.  Guess not.  Sure would help though.

I did try one more trick I heard about and that was removing the battery and re-installing. Figured that would have worked when I had to update the time/date info, but nope!  Still have same issue. 

Is there any way to get a log (written) so I could do another "msconfig"  and go through it and manually write in the correct info???  Would be nice if I had copied the original file before I changed it. Problen is it's such a large file I don't have any idea what I changed to screw it up.   When I saw that what I was doing wasn't the same as what this idiot is telling the world  it was too late to go back and undo what I did.

If you what to know what I saw and did to screw it up, here's a link.  My problem was he did it on a WIN10 system and don't know what compuer he did it on.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8unagKHPGt8

[mdklassen]

> Computer will not boot on it's own. I have to hit "esc key" and select what drive to boot from.

Your computer has a BIOS -- Basic Input Output System -- a collection of machine-language instructions to program the CPU to use the motherboard and the I/O devices.  This is "software".

Your computer also has a CMOS chip -- it stores the BIOS settings, so that the BIOS can retrieve the values.

The small battery on the battery gives "trickle" power to the CMOS chip, to allow the CMOS to keep the values.

Your computer may have a small "jumper" that can be moved (from connecting pin #1 to pin #2, to connecting pin #2 to pin #3) to "reset" the CMOS -- to delete all the stored settings.  Similarly, disconnecting that small battery may cause the CMOS to "lose" all the settings.

Anyway, back to your problem.

Enter BIOS setup, and look for the "Boot" menu (or the Boot Settings).

Change the settings so that your disk-drive is listed as the "first" choice for each boot attempt.

Then, "save-and-exit" from BIOS setup, and your computer should automatically boot from the disk-drive.

Note that some BIOSes have a "timer" for the boot process.

You will see a message like "press DEL to enter Setup, or press ESC to boot now",

with a count-down timer (9, 8, 7, 6, ....) so that it will soon boot without you pressing any key.

I wonder how much money that the "this is a joke" video has earned for the author, for all the advertisements he has allowed YouTube to insert into his video.  One million "views", times 2 ads, times $0.01 each, will pay for a brand-new automobile.  Even at 1/10 of $0.01 per ad, that's $2000 into his wallet.

[BudPytko]

OK...I will try what you suggest again. Yes, I have tryed that alrady too but it seems like it does not "SAVE" the request to boot from the  "C" drive.  I won't be able to do that until later on today or this evening as I am now trying to restore all the stuff I lost on the "SYSTEM" restore I did trying to solve my problem.   WOW - there are a LOT of WIN UPDATES since the last time a had to do a restore.  That was quite a few years ago.

Thanks again for letting me oick your brain.  I might also try the CMOS reset brefore I try the boot order selection again.. I think after doing some reading that I might not have left the battery out long enough for the residual voltage to bleed down.

[BudPytko · Accepted solution]

Thank you for persisting that I continue with the "BOOT ORDER" setup !!   Finally figured out that I had to "hide" or "disable" the legacy bootable external (USB) backup drive so I could move the "C" drive to the top of the list !!!  That, SIR, fixed my problem. It now boots directly to my C drive that happens to be a 500 GB SSD drive.  Using the original 1TB hard drive as the drive to store all my OTHER files.  It surely makes my computer NEW again.

Again Sir, thank you for sticking with me until the problem was resolved !