This Dell server has had some of its components changed - hard drives changed, and memory upgraded. As a result, when booting up, it asked "Strike F1 to continue".
dell.com website provides download for latest BIOS. It is said that flashing the BIOS will get rid of this "Strike F1 to continue". But I am lazy tonight. I already installed Linux on it, so I can't use dell.com's exe file to update BIOS. Nor do I have a diskette handy to create floppy disk.
As a last resort, I went into the BIOS setup one more time, and set "OS Install Mode" to OFF. Wala! Now I can boot without "striking F1 to continue".
This one also gave me the annoying "striking F1 to continue" message. There is nothing in the BIOS that could turn off "OS Install Mode"; yet upgrading the BIOS didn't help, either. So, I guess I had to do it the hard in order to really reset the BIOS.
I took the BIOS battery out, replaced it with a new battery, and at boot time I got a warning of "System battery voltage is low". Enter the BIOS setup (F2), correct the system time and date, and save and exit the setup. Now rebooting will go straight with the "striking F1 to continue".
Next time if I get this again, I will try in BIOS to "clear event log", and see if that does the trick. Taking the BIOS battery out is quite tricky, for there is not much room to move the figures around.
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Anonymous
February 13, 2009
2 years 51 weeks
Dell PowerEdge 1400
The A09 BIOS is the latest version and solved many of my issues with a Dell PowerEdge 1400 server from my former employer.
The server was previously running Windows NT 4.0
I found that firmware updates were required on: Archive DAT tape drive, 2 of the 4 SCSI drives installed and the PowerEdge BIOS. Normal steps I take before I install new OS on a desktop computer or server.
Here are my steps for the Ubuntu 8.10 install
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1063456
g. beat