If you find that the BIOS on your Windows computer has been corrupted, you can restore BIOS defaults easily. A corrupted BIOS could result from a BIOS Update gone bad, a malware infection, a sudden power outage, over-tweaking, etc. In any of these cases or if you face problems with Windows booting, installing, or loading the Windows operating system, you may want to consider resetting your BIOS.
To those who do not know, BIOS or Basic Input Output System is a firmware, stored on a chip on a part of the computer motherboard that is basically a set of instructions that run to help load the operating system. When you turn on the computer, BIOS instructions are initiated, and on completion, the operating system is loaded.
The procedure to restore BIOS default settings is more or less the same computer, may it be a Dell, HP, Lenovo, Sony, Acer, ASUS, Toshiba, Panasonic and so on.
Start your computer, and as soon as you hit the Power On button, keep pressing the F10 key. This works on most laptops, including Dell. On an HP laptop, it could be the F2 key. You will see the keys that work for your hardware during boot in the bottom left or right corner against Boot Options or Setup.
You have to use that key to enter BIOS Setup.
Once you do this, your BIOS options will load. Remember that when in BIOS, you have to navigate using the arrow keyboard keys.
How to reset BIOS settings
You can simply hit the F9 key to display a blue screen that says Load Setup defaults? Clicking on Yes will restore the default BIOS settings. On my Dell laptop, under the Security tab, I could also see an entry – Restore Security settings to Factory Defaults. If you see it, you could use this option too. Select it using the arrow keys and hit Enter.
FIX: BIOS Power-On Self-Test (POST) errors.
Restore BIOS to default values
On my HP laptop, I had to press F2 to boot to BIOS setup options. Once here, under the Exit tab, I could see a Load Setup Defaults options. You could select it using the arrow keys and hit Enter. Or you could simply hit the F9 key to display a white screen that says Load default configuration now? Clicking on Yes will reset the BIOS settings.
Remember to press F10 to save and exit.
Read next:
- How to recover BIOS on laptop?
- How to use BIOS settings on Windows computers.
hi please excuse my ignorance, but will this wipe my hard drive, will i lose anything from laptop if i use this option?
It will not wipe your hard drive, but if done incorrectly, may make your PC unbootable. So follow the instructions carefully.
My laptop got stuck in device boot, saying no bootable device, press any key, I press enter, and it goes into a boot device menu that says how to choose a device, but there are none there, and when I press esc, it takes to me to a screen where whenever I press a button, it says no device bootable, please restart your computer. Btw, I have an Acer with Windows 8.1 please help
very helpful! thanks you! and by the way, I have an HP, and it was F10 that worked to boot the BIOS, not F2. But laptop is back working now, network settings have been restored :)