Don't know if this is correct as there is no mention in the manual, but an ASUS forum post mention f8 as the key to tap at startup to access the boot menu.
Here is the link to that post.
http://vip.asus.com/forum/
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How to activate boot-menu on ASUS mainboard P6T SE?!
Hi.
Sorry for dummy question but seems there are bugs in BIOS, so I cannot findout how to activate bootmenu?!?!
By telling "boot-menu" I mean the selector of boot device. For example on gigabyte m/b I can press F12 while computer is rebooting and there will be menu - list of all connected devices I can boot OS from. Usually there are list of all HDD + list of USB HDD + list of removable devices.
So, situation is following: the mainboard ASUS P6T SE, AMI BIOS revision 0603 - seems the latest. CPU is i7-920. 2 x HDD 0.5Tb. I need to choose from which HDD to boot, it could be normal HDD inside computer or external USB HDD.
But I cannot find - how to activate the boot menu?!?!
First - it does not display on screen what key to press to activate boot-menu.
Second - it seems I have got it once - pressed lot of Fn-keys and there was a blue menu - the selector of HDD to boot OS from. But all other attempts did fail, so I 'munable to activate it once again. :-\
Browsing m/b manual also did not help - I have not found any information on this. :-(
Does anybody knows it? Could you please help?
Note: entering BIOS all the time I need to select boot device - IS NOT AN OPTION AT ALL! That is very long and inconvenient way.
And if guys in AMI really removed normal boot menu and pushed this functionality into a BIOS... :-E~ I think they are complete id...s! :-\ But hope that is not the case.
/Dmitry.
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Answers
Hm... And that is excetly the problem! - nor Esc, nor F8, nor F12 - all these does not work. :-(((
I starts to think - maybe AMI guys really id...s or maybe that is a just a bug in BIOS. :-\
In first case it is terribly bad and maybe there is no cure.
In second case - have to report bug to ASUS and wait for BIOS update.
Does anybody know - how to report bug to ASUS? Is there a special page or email?
If you've tried every function key; ESCape; End; Home; Insert; and Delete then you've tried every key that is likely to be used. Since the manual makes no mention of it, and the usual keys that Asus uses don't work, it would seem that this model simply doesn't have a boot selection menu. In that case, you can either go into the BIOS when you need to change the selection (as you indicated you really didn't want to do) ... or use a 3rd party boot manager.
Not really any other choice if the BIOS doesn't support a one-time boot selection choice during POST.
I use Boot-It NG -- it's a bit "geeky" to set up, but it's VERY powerful and rock-solid.
Here's my boot menu ...
- My-New-Boot-Menu-with-Win7.jpg
- 21 KB
Boot Menu
Of course I can enter BIOS. I'm using PS/2 keyboard.
On startup screen I see message "Press DEL to entre BIOS, TAB to see POST screen". Both keys works - TAB and DEL. But there are no other keys working - nor F1..F12, nor ESC. Seems boot manager is only the solution... :-\
Btw, before I have tried USB keyboard - it also worked fine without any preparations and special settings in BIOS. And seems only the one possible successfull activtion of boot selector was achieved on notebook-size USB keyboard.
So, maybe there should be a working key for boot selector, but WHAT?! I just tried also HOME, END, INS and so on - no effect. What also I could try? Pressing all keyboard?...
If Home, End, Insert, Delete, ESCape, and none of the function keys work it's reasonably certain your BIOS simply doesn't support a boot menu via a direct key during POST. You almost certainly have to go into the BIOS to change the order as you want -- or (as I noted earlier) simply use a boot manager.
Your earlier apparent "success" was most likely a keystroke sequence that happened to go into the BIOS and select the boot order menu.
Ok.
So, conclusions are:
1) ASUS P6T SE mainboard does not support boot selector menu :-(((
The "bad" grade to the ASUS + AMI guys!
2) Have to use boot manager software to select boot options.
Not sure about the BootIt software but I just realized that the "OS Selector" component is part of Acrinis Disk Director Suite - I have that software, so do not need to pay extra money for boot manager.
Testing of "OS Selector" did show that it actually works fine in my conditions, so I'll use it for sometime.
3) As here were no ideas and no answers, I think I should left this question open, and not mark as "have solution". Hope somebody could find keys sequence to active boot selector and report it here.
Your question was answered -- although not the answer you were hoping for. As you just noted, the answer is (a) your BIOS doesn't support a boot selection menu; and (b) you can accomplish that with a 3rd party boot manager (and you already have one).
... I told you both of those in the very first post -- and both sparkmaker and I also suggested several keys that may have implemented an undocumented menu (but clearly in this case the manual is correct by omission -- since it doesn't mention any such capability).
I have found that it supports boot-menu but it linked to the IDE Raid Controller.
So, if BIOS has "IDE Timeout" setting = 0, then it never works because BIOS had no chance to wait for boot-menu key.
Thus, to enable boot-menu "IDE Timeout" setting should not zero (I'm using "5 sec"). And boot-menu activated by F8 as usual for ASUS.
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by: garycasePosted on 2009-11-07 at 20:28:44ID: 25769394
The manual for that motherboard has NO information about a temporary boot selection screen -- so there may not be one. But many Asus boards will display a temporary boot selection menu if you press ESCape during the POST display -- so try that.
If that doesn't work, your only choice may be to modify the order in the BIOS anytime you want to change the boot order (which you indicated you don't want to do) ... or to install a 3rd party boot manager (Boot-It NG is an excellent one) which will let you select the OS you want to boot to.