Bios Issues on Compaq Presario

[matrix733]

Hello all, I have a Compaq Presario 2195US Laptop and it worked fine for months then all of a sudden it went kapoot. When the power button is pressed it gives me the options:

Press ESC to change boot order

Press F2 to enter setup

Press F12 to boot from lan

The problem is, if i press F2 or F12, it hangs at the screen with the compaq logo with the message entering setup or booting from lan and does not do anything, it's like the bios is faulty.

If I select ESC it starts post, run memory check then right below that it says
A drive in this system cannot be unlocked.

I assume this is that crap drivelock bios an I don't know the password but that does not matter as it does not even ask for one. The harddrive that came with the system is still in it, I put a new drive in thinking that would solve it but it still has the same problem. I could care less for a 40 gig drive with drivelock as I already have a new one.

I have cleared the cmos which was a pain as its at the back of the motherboard so I had to take the entire laptop apart. It still has the same issue. Before I clear the Cmos it gave the F1 option which would load default settings but then it said Error Loading OS, I have the compaq restore CD which is not recognized at all.

This Laptop does not have a floppy Drive, I removed all the drives but same symtoms.

Am thinking I can desolder the bios, flash with the latest bios and see if that helps or is there a serial number that ties this chip to this motherboard so that cannot be accomplished.:wtf:

any ideas and or suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
matrix733

[zekrahminator]

Before you take our your soldering iron, you should try to claim your warranty from Compaq. If you can't claim your Warranty, then I suspect that your motherboard is having trouble detecting all its devices. This can be caused by faulty ports on either side (drive or motherboard.), a loose power connection, dead drives, or messed-up jumper settings. If this doesn't fix it, then you should sell it on ebay for a cheap price calling it "defective, possibly fixable". Good luck man, I was thinking you had a dead hard drive right until you said you replaced it :laugh:.