How to modify the boot sequence in the bios

How to modify the boot sequence in BIOS

But how can this order be changed? The operation is simple, it does not present any type of difficulty: the appearance of the BIOS can vary, but the instructions remain identical, even on the best high-end motherboards with UEFI BIOS.

Access the BIOS

To access the BIOS, it is necessary to restart the computer and press a specific key on the keyboard, at the beginning of the boot process, when a black screen appears with some letters.

Sometimes a different color screen may appear: this is the case of the small Asus Eee PC laptops, where the screen is gray. The important thing is that the following message appears: "Press DEL to enter setup" or "Press F2 to access the BIOS", which is always written in English.

There are cases in which a different key or set of keys may be required, depending on the model and brand of the equipment or the motherboard, but in general the required key is F2 or DEL.

Find the BOOT

Once inside the BIOS, it is possible to observe a menu written in English, in which we can make the options with the keyboard arrow keys (we can forget the mouse, since in the BIOS it does not work) and confirm the choice with the key. Enter.

In the BIOS, each section has the name of BOOT: it can be a separator or an option integrated in a menu, therefore it is necessary to always find it by navigating with the arrows and confirming with Enter.

Change the order

Once you have found the BOOT, it is possible to observe the options present in the Boot Device Pirority with the current boot order: 1st Boot Device, 2nd Boot Device, 3rd Boot Device. Naturally, 1st will be the first device to go into operation, 2nd the second and 3rd the third. Next to it, the name (and brand) of each device is visible.

Remember that to change use the + or - keys… you can also select it by pressing ENTER.

Since our goal is to change the order, with the arrow keys we choose 1st Boot Device and press Enter: it is now possible to choose a new device. In some BIOS models it will be enough to use the keyboard arrow keys, in others, the + and - keys: be that as it may, once chosen, we will have to press Enter to confirm our choice.

Important: flash memory and external hard drives must be already connected to the computer before accessing the BIOS, otherwise they will not appear among the options. And remember that we will never see in the options " Pendrive " or "USB stick": it is most likely to find the brand of the device, so it will be better to know what brands we have.

After choosing the first device, it indicates the hard disk as the second option for the operating system to start if it does not find the device indicated as 1st Device.

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Save and exit

When finished, press F10 to save your selections and exit setup (Save and Exit).

At any time, we can always press ESC to return to the previous menu. Also in this case, if the idea is to save the changes, press F10 before leaving the BIOS.

Now when the computer restarts it will search for the first indicated device and if it cannot find it it will use the second boot option (hard drive) and the operating system will start.

On some computers it is not necessary to enter the BIOS to change the boot order, because it is not a separate option. In this case, on the black screen that appears for a moment when you turn on the computer, an indication appears saying "Press F11 key for boot menu" (or F12) to enter the boot menu. This allows you to choose which device to use to start the computer only on that occasion, without changing the order permanently.

If you do not want to enter BIOS many motherboards allow booting the connected USB by pressing F8 or F11. A good trick for when we want to go very fast.

On newer computers, the BIOS has been replaced by a different system called UEFI, much easier to use and understand. Although the keys to be pressed and the graphic part may vary according to the model of the computer, the process is similar in all computers that use the traditional BIOS.

We recommend reading our tutorials and if you have any questions, you can ask us to reply.