Press F1 to continue
I have a Dell poweredge windows 2003 server that once in a while we have a power outage in the building so everytime the power goes out, the server shuts down after the battery backup is exhausted. When the power comes back on the server boots itself up but remains stuck at "press F1 to continue" black page. I'm not there when this happens and need the server to turn fully on. How can i bypass that message?
Reduced points as this is a duplicate Question.
rindi,
EE ZA Storage
rindi
First of all boot the server to find out why it is stuck at that point. There should be a message of some sort as to why you need to press F1. Then you can act accordingly so that that message doesn't show up again.
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In the BIOS options you may be able to set "Do not pause on errors".
You probably created a hardware system restore point OR "LAST KNOWN GOOD" created a hardware restore point for you.
Upon power failure, your computer will think there is a hardware problem and will wait for you to select a """Hardware Profile""". The hardware profile is a list of drivers that you will load upon boot. So, this what's happening is your machine is asking you what hardware profile do I go to.
You can tell your machine to automatically choose the last hardware profile if YOU don't select one within 30 seconds. Right now, I will bet it is on "wait until I select a hardware profile prior to booting up".
Right click the "my computer" icon. Select the hardware tab. On the very bottom button you will see "Hardware Profiles", Choose "Hardware Profile" button. Now select the option "Select the First Profile Listed, if I don't select a profile in" now choose "30 seconds" in the drop down box.
Upon power failure, your computer will think there is a hardware problem and will wait for you to select a """Hardware Profile""". The hardware profile is a list of drivers that you will load upon boot. So, this what's happening is your machine is asking you what hardware profile do I go to.
You can tell your machine to automatically choose the last hardware profile if YOU don't select one within 30 seconds. Right now, I will bet it is on "wait until I select a hardware profile prior to booting up".
Right click the "my computer" icon. Select the hardware tab. On the very bottom button you will see "Hardware Profiles", Choose "Hardware Profile" button. Now select the option "Select the First Profile Listed, if I don't select a profile in" now choose "30 seconds" in the drop down box.
If you have Dell OpenManage installed on the server, some versions allow you to change BIOS settings withut necessitiating an on-site call, but as rindi's pointed out, you need to know what's causing the F1-continue state.
ASKER
i will use these options tomorrow when i look at it. Thanks guys
Did you get it sorted out? If not, what model server are you working with? Do you see any "unknown" devices in the BIOS setup?
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