Cannot Enter Bios Or Boot From CD or DVD

Sorry for the MIA for 1 week. It is not that I forget to write, but our ISP is having technical difficulties in our area. It is understandable that they have been dealing with the bad weather lately which I can also notice, causing some countries massive flood. They say they are still working on it but that does not matter now, because I am flying soon, back to Singapore.

But anyway, here I am today, sharing this common scenario for advance literate computer users when performing a Windows reformat or reinstall. Today I plan to reformat my Acer Travelmate 6291. I have the Windows 7 genuine DVD ready to boot from but apparently my Acer does not want to boot from CD. It does not even show the text: "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD". How to fix this?

Generally, the key combination that we can always use is either the F2 or Del key. That should bring out the BIOS that we need to configure the boot priority as what I have pointed out previously in this post: Error: "Cannot Open File C:\Recovery.dat".

But sadly, sometimes the F2 or Del key may not do the trick. Some people ended up trying each of the "F-keys" which meant a mind-blasting 12 repetitive reboots. That will obviously harm your hardisk! Avoid such procedure in any given circumstances. Instead of performing that madness, you can refer to this list for a correct key combination to bring out the BIOS:

Acer F1, F2, CTRL+ALT+ESC
ARI CTRL+ALT+ESC, CTRL+ALT+DEL
AST CTRL+ALT+ESC, CTRL+ALT+DEL
Compaq F10
CompUSA DEL
Cybermax ESC
Dell 400 F3, F1
Dell 4400 F12
Dell Dimension F2, DEL
Dell Inspiron F2
Dell Latitude Fn+F1, F2
Dell Optiplex DEL, F2
Dell Precision F2
eMachine DEL, F2
Fujitsu Manuals & Bios (visit here)
Gateway 2000 1440 F1
Gateway 2000 Solo F2
HP F1, F2, ESC
IBM F1
IBM PS/2 CTRL+ALT+INS after CTRL+ALT+DEL Intel Tangent DEL
Lenovo (visit here)
Micron F1, F2, or DEL
Packard Bell F1, F2, Del
Seanix DEL
Sony VAIO F2, F3
Tiger DEL
Toshiba 335 CDS ESC
Toshiba Protege ESC
Toshiba Satellite 205 CDS F1
Toshiba Tecra ESC then F1 or F2
Procedures for Toshiba Notebook:

1. Turn on computer by Holding down power button while pressing the ESC key. The machine will beep, then display: Check System, then press [F1] key.
2. Release ESC key
3. Press F1 key

(credits to: michaelstevenstech)

Specifically for Acer Travelmate 6291 (I am not sure if this applies to all the other Travelmates), on the first page when it is on, it shows "Press F2 to setup". However pressing F2 will only let you choose the OS you want to boot, instead of the BIOS. That is why you need to refer to the table above and learn that you need to use another key combination.

For my case, I need to hold down (pressing) Ctrl+Alt+Del keys during the startup. This will give an annoying beeping sound and after I see the white page loads, I release the keys, and press F2 subsequently. That allows me to boot to BIOS and modify the boot priority.

After a correct settings in BIOS, I finally able to boot from DVD and a new Windows 7 is installed smoothly.

Enjoy the new Windows 7 again!