BIOS setup utility for a laptop?

During the blackscreen stage of bootup my HP pavilion xf255 provides no
POST. After hitting the F2 key at the black screen prompt, I can get to a
tiny portion of its (BIOS) "setup", which provides only the selection of
boot device, date, and time . It displays no other setup info.

I want to get the HDD drive parameter info (heads, cyls, sectors, landz,
etc.). So how do I get to the full setup utility for its BIOS? Which key(s)
to I hit? And can laptops be configured to display a POST at the earliest
stage of bootup?

In article <uPEhb.5073$. net>,
says...
> During the blackscreen stage of bootup my HP pavilion xf255 provides no
> POST. After hitting the F2 key at the black screen prompt, I can get to a
> tiny portion of its (BIOS) "setup", which provides only the selection of
> boot device, date, and time . It displays no other setup info.
>
> I want to get the HDD drive parameter info (heads, cyls, sectors, landz,
> etc.). So how do I get to the full setup utility for its BIOS? Which key(s)
> to I hit? And can laptops be configured to display a POST at the earliest
> stage of bootup?
>
You can only get to the menu items the mftr has decided you can have.
If it's an AMI BIOS you can use AMIBCP to modify a BIOS file but you'll
have to flash the laptop with the modofoed file.


--
Nuckfut

Hi. This is my friend, Jack ****, and you don't know him.

"Nuckfut" <> wrote in message
news: ...
> In article <uPEhb.5073$. net>,
> says...
> > During the blackscreen stage of bootup my HP pavilion xf255 provides no
> > POST. After hitting the F2 key at the black screen prompt, I can get to
a
> > tiny portion of its (BIOS) "setup", which provides only the selection of
> > boot device, date, and time . It displays no other setup info.
> >
> > I want to get the HDD drive parameter info (heads, cyls, sectors, landz,
> > etc.). So how do I get to the full setup utility for its BIOS? Which
key(s)
> > to I hit? And can laptops be configured to display a POST at the
earliest
> > stage of bootup?
> >
> You can only get to the menu items the mftr has decided you can have.
> If it's an AMI BIOS you can use AMIBCP to modify a BIOS file but you'll
> have to flash the laptop with the modofoed file.

I've flashed BIOSes on tower PCs before, and I know that one must be very
careful to obtain not only the correct BIOS developer, but the correct
version too. I don't know either for this HP laptop. Does HP-Compaq develop
their own BIOSes or do they rely on subcontractors; just as they do for
about everything else?