When I go into bios I get a screen asking me what device I want to boot
from.The problem is I don't know and am afraid I will damage something if I
hit the wrong button.I just want to by-pass this and disable the onboard
graphics so I can install a new card.
Typically the BIOS looks to each device in the order you select. If no boot
instructions are found on it, the system moves to the next device in the
list and checks again. When it finally finds what it's looking for, it
initiates the boot code and hands over control to the operating system.
On some systems, an extra prompt is added if you have selected a CDrom
drive as the first device to be checked. The prompt allows you to select
booting from that drive or bypassing it to move on to the next device in
the list.
Selecting the hard drive as the first boot drive, works fine for everyday
purposes. After running POST (Power On Self Test), a Windows XP system
moves on to loading Windows. Some folks like to place the floppy before the
hard drive. That's fine too - however, I avoid it so that if someone has
left an infected floppy disk in the drive the chances of it infecting the
system are reduced.
For troubleshooting, you might change the boot order to allow the floppy
drive or the cdrom drive first. The Windows XP installation CD and some
utility CDs are bootable, so if you were going to reinstall or run tests
from CD, you would use BIOS to select this choice.
