Phisherman astounded us with:
:

I was given an old Compaq Presario CDS 860 and can't figure out how to
access the BIOS. I tried F5, F8, and F10. I pressed the function key
during bootup, but still got no BIOS screen. I tried each of the
three keys mentioned at least three times. Any ideas?
Does this machine even have an accessible BIOS?
I know there are several jumper switches on the MoBo to control
onboard video, processor type, enabling onboard sound , etc. (The
machine boots up just fine with Windows 95, although I may decide to
load Linux onto it.) Thanks.


IIRC, the older Compaq's had a partition on the HD that loaded a BIOS access
program when you pressed F10 while a block cursor flashed in the upper RH
corner of the screen for about 3 sseconds. If the hard drive got wiped, you
had to D/L a boot disk program from Compaq to achieve the same result.
HTH


--
Gene P