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csnzFlag for New Zealand

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Cannot gain access to HP BIOS (not a password issue)

I am unable to gain access to the part of the BIOS that will let me change the date and / or time on this laptop. It is a Compaq / HP NC2400.

When I power the computer on, it says on the screen: F10=ROM based setup. If I press F10, it takes me to a 'computer setup' series of screens. In here, it will let me set passwords, boot order, some other things like this, but does NOT have any option to display the date and time, or let it be changed.

This leads me to believe that there is another BIOS screen I can get to, and I just don't know how to do this. I have tried the following keys: F1 - F12, Del, Escape. I can't think of any others.

F9 brings up a boot menu where you can choose which device to boot from, fwiw.

I'm really stuck on this one, the disk is damaged so I can't boot into Windows, and I don't know how else to change the date except in the BIOS.
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uucknaaa
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If the option isn't available in the BIOS (F10 - ROM based setup), I would assume its not available. You could see if there is an updated version of the systems BIOS however.

Why do you need to change the date/time in the BIOS?
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ASKER

I'm wanting to run a backup program to see if I can image the disk prior to doing anything intrusive, like repairing / reinstalling Windows. Unfortunately the backup program is a trial version that won't work after a specific date.

I like uucknaaa's idea of doing it from a DOS prompt, I'll see how I get on with that. Thanks for your comments.
Try ShadowProtect Desktop demo, it works for 30 days and still lets u mount images after that. It also has a bootcd for taking images. Alternatively you could try CloneZilla which is free, or Symantec Ghost, Acronis, etc.

Or if the hard drive is heavily damaged, you could try Miray HDClone, which is very good at recovering data from damaged drives.
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ASKER

This solution worked fine - although I was not able to access the BIOS, expert gave an alternative way to achieve my end goal.