Dell Mini Tower System manual Diskette First

Diskette First

Selecting Diskette First causes the system to try booting from drive A first. If the system finds a dis- kette that is not bootable in the drive or finds a problem with the drive itself, it displays an error mes- sage. If it does not find a diskette in the drive, the system tries to boot from the hard-disk drive (drive 0), then from the CD-ROM, and finally from the Plug and Play network adapters in the order found.

Hard Disk Only

Selecting Hard Disk Only causes the system to attempt to boot first from the hard-disk drive and then from the Plug and Play network adapters in the order found.

CD-ROM First

Selecting CD-ROM First causes the system to try booting from the CD-ROM drive first. If the system finds a CD that is not bootable in the drive or finds a problem with the drive itself, it displays an error message. If it does not find a CD in the drive, the system tries to boot from drive A, then from drive C, and finally from the Plug and Play network adapters in the order found.

Device List

Device List provides access to the Device List screen where you can choose from a list of available boot devices to boot from and specify the order in which your computer attempts to boot from these devices. To view the Device List screen, press <Ctrl> and the right-arrow key.

CAUTION: Only a technically knowledgeable person should change the settings in the Device List screen.

The Device List screen (see Figure 2-2) provides three categories for listing and prioritizing the available boot devices on your system:

•Boot Device Priority

•Exclude From Boot Device Priority

•Device Controller Priority

The Boot Device Priority category lists all bootable devices (hard-disk drives, CD-ROM drives, and so on) that are controlled by the system BIOS and any Plug and Play network adapters installed in the system.

The Exclude From Boot Device Priority category allows you to remove from the Boot Device Priority category any boot devices that you want the system to ignore dur- ing system start-up.

The Device Controller Priority category lists the system BIOS controller; any non-Plug and Play devices, such as network adapter cards; and any secondary controller cards, such as a small computer system interface (SCSI) adapter, installed in the system.

NOTE: Non-Plug and Play devices appear in this list as Adapters without ID support.

When determining the order of devices to boot from, the system first considers the order of the devices listed under the Device Controller Priority category, then the order of devices under Boot Device Priority.

To specify your priority preferences, order the devices under these categories so that the highest-priority con- troller is at the top of the Device Controller Priority category and the highest-priority device is at the top of the Boot Device Priority category. Order the remainder of the devices in the Boot Device Priority category accord- ing to your preferences. Move any devices that you want the system to ignore during start-up into the Exclude From Boot Device Priority category.

NOTE: The system defines drive C in the Boot Device Priority category as the first hard-disk drive attached to the highest-priority device controller. Therefore, if you have a SCSI adapter installed in your system and you want the SCSI drive 0 to be drive C, you must move the SCSI adapter item to the top of the Device Controller Pri- ority category.

To change the order of the devices, press <Ctrl> and the up- or down-arrow key. If you want to revert to the original Boot Device Priority category settings, press <Ctrl><Del>.

NOTE: If you exit the Device List option by pressing <Esc> or <Alt><b> without making any changes, the Boot Sequence category is set to the Device List option.

Using the System Setup Program 2-7