BIOS loading screen doesn't show
I have a single operating system (Ubuntu). When I start my computer, I get a black screen, and after a few seconds, the Ubuntu loading screen, and after that I'm able to use my computer as usual. I do not get the BIOS loading screen. I've tried F2 and F12 (which are the keys used in Toshiba Satellite, my laptop) while the black screen shows to enter BIOS setup, but those don't work.
How do I fix this? I've already reinstalled Ubuntu (not because of this) and the problem still persists, though I doubt that Ubuntu is the problem.
EDIT: My questions is not how to enter the BIOS setup - I know how to do that. The problem is that I don't even get the usual loading screen that says "TOSHIBA" and "Press F12 to enter setup". My computer, on being turned on, directly shows the Ubuntu loading screen
57 Answers
You may have inadvertantly selected a "quick boot", "boot logo" or similar setting, which replaces the BIOS' normal output with a graphical image and might skip certain checks to make the system boot faster. But I find it hard to see that something like that would have changed without you actively doing anything to the BIOS.
Removing the CMOS battery, or using a "CLEAR CMOS" jumper on the motherboard (at least on full-sized motherboards there is usually one that can be set to either "normal" or "clear"/"reset"), would be the first thing I try. You'll lose all BIOS settings, including the system date and time, but once you get into the BIOS setup a "restore to factory defaults" or similar should be all that is needed to bring the settings to reasonable values. Remember to reset the system time afterwards, preferably before booting (some things may be upset when the system time makes sudden jumps of many years). Note that since you have a single-boot Linux system the OS may be configured to read the system clock as UTC rather than local time.
Clearing the CMOS memory by any means will usually force you to enter the BIOS setup on the next boot, because then the internal data checksum won't match.
2There are more ways to open the BIOS, depending on what company developed it. Have you tried all of these? (Or at least those by your system's manufacturer
Might be that you somehow disabled the BIOS from showing at boot, and you should be able to re-enable it in the BIOS itself (using whatever key combination, see link above)
9Try to remove your battery for a few seconds and then try to reboot your PC. As soon as it starts try to get to the BIOS CP by pressing the BIOS CP buttons. They will likely be ESC, F2, F10 and DEL.
1Turn off your laptop then press F2 and hold at the same time power on then show up your bios image then change booting fast to Normal.. That's it.. Good luck
1It can be something bizarre, mine was apparently a bad HDMI cable. I would not bother to post this, but I never would have found the problem except by accident when I swapped cables with another computer and it would not work either.
I have encountered this problem on Fedora and OpenSUSE as well on my Lenovo laptop. The trick is to get the GRUB boot menu to appear before it starts to launch the actual OS.
You can probably adjust a setting in GRUB to always show this menu, but I was able to get to it by pressing ESC once at startup after the motherboard's splash screen goes away. If you hold it down or press it many times, it will probably go to the GRUB command line, which you do not want.
If you can't time the press of ESC properly, press the key to show the BIOS screen on boot, then hold ESC. Once you get to the GRUB command line, type in exit, then press enter. It should then go to the BIOS screen.
Once the GRUB menu appears, select "UEFI Boot options" (text may be different), and it should bring up the BIOS screen after rebooting.
1Better option, this one works for old PCs. MY ORIGINAL!!
Get rid of the keyboard for a minute.
Then simply start the PC. You must see a screen like this. Observe it.
Read the last line. It is
Press DEL key to enter setup, ESC to skip memory test.Press Del to enter the BIOS setup.
