Basically around the 2000s we had a WinXP computer and each time I wanted to use it, either my mom or my dad had to turn it on. However they had to strike the key to enter the BIOS. Everytime when booting the PC. Then they would exit the BIOS and so Windows XP would boot normally.
Do you guys know if your parents also did that and why?
Not sure! However, it’s possible the coin cell that keeps the BIOS settings was removed or dead. This forces the BIOS into default configuration on boot, which may have caused a boot failure if you needed some specific hardware configuration set in BIOS.
Maybe they used it as a way to control computer access, but it seems more likely that they just didn’t get around to replacing the coin cell :D
It was possible to set a bios password. They might have done that to prevent you from booting the computer without permission.
Are you sure it was BIOS, and not just the password unlock, or they had DOS amd Windows Dual boot?
My assumption is that the default boot device was wrong and they needed to go to the bios to switch it but would never save the correct order so they had to do it every time.
Bios was not set up correctly, or it did not detect the keyboard and was set to fail into bios in that case.
There was no real standard of behaviour that was adhered to for early PCs, so different hardware acted very differently. Standards that were adopted like USB were often implemented in incomplete or incompatible ways.
They had some BIOS issue or wanted to boot from a different partition. Possibly to keep your virus laden downloads away from their files.
“Let us just change the boot order so you can play in your shitty OS, and not our secure Gentoo drive”
Your parents werent computer smart people.
Hey, knowing your way into the BIOS and out again is at least hacker level 7.
I mean the computer literally tells you how to do it when booting up
Reading the messages on the screen is already hacker level 5.
