[Abouna]

(I accidentally posted this in the Mini 9 forum first!)

Mini 10v

OK, I have my XP disc. I have my external DVD-rom via USB running.

Do you think I can figure out how to get OS X to boot from the external drive? No!

Someone please give me a hand. I have no idea what I'm doing with OSX. It's so easy with Win, just hold down f8 and pick where you want to boot from!

I did manage to hit f12 and get to the bios settings but I must have screwed up something in there because now I cant even get to the setup screen, it skips it entirely and goes directly to booting into OS X.

[outphase]

You need to make sure that you can boot from USB. It's not an OSX issue but a BIOS issue.

[w7ox]

Press F2 while Dell boot is starting up (Dell logo on screen). Set BIOS to usb legacy support enabled. Save and exit.

Phil

[Abouna]

OK, I'm not getting the Dell logo screen anymore. I must have screwed something up in the BIOS when i could get into it. I think I:

enabled USB legacy support
enabled somethng else right under or over htat having to do with the USB
moved the USB external device to the top

I have tired 2, 0, f2, f12

Can't get back into the BIOS.

What can I do?

[w7ox]

You are not going to like this answer. When my 10v did that I tried lots of things. Finally I disconnected the BIOS coin battery on the motherboard and reconnected it. That solved my problem and I was able to boot up again.

The problem is that battery lives near the memory module. To disconnect it you have to follow the process in the guides here Dell Mini 10 Guides (there are several on upgrading 10v memory from 1 GB to 2 GB), carefully disconnect the battery plug from the motherboard, wait a bit and reconnect it -- then reassemble the 10v.

If you've upgraded your memory already, it's easy to do. If not, I'd upgrade the memory at the same time.

Phil

[Abouna]

Originally Posted by w7ox

You are not going to like this answer. When my 10v did that I tried lots of things. Finally I disconnected the BIOS coin battery on the motherboard and reconnected it. That solved my problem and I was able to boot up again.

The problem is that battery lives near the memory module. To disconnect it you have to follow the process in the guides here Dell Mini 10 Guides (there are several on upgrading 10v memory from 1 GB to 2 GB), carefully disconnect the battery plug from the motherboard, wait a bit and reconnect it -- then reassemble the 10v.

If you've upgraded your memory already, it's easy to do. If not, I'd upgrade the memory at the same time.

Phil

Is that my only choice here? I had a friend do the mem upgrade. I really don't feel like tearing into this thing.

[w7ox]

Is this still happening "I did manage to hit f12 and get to the bios settings but I must have screwed up something in there because now I cant even get to the setup screen, it skips it entirely and goes directly to booting into OS X." -- is it booting into OS X? If so, that's a different problem than I had (mine would not boot at all).

Phil

[Abouna]

Yes, it boots into OSX just fine. I simply get no Dell screen or even the text prompt for f12 or f2.

[Abouna]

Anybody else got advice?

[Scooter70]

Try Shift-F12 (or is it Fn-F12?). Maybe you turned on the Multimedia setting in the BIOS.