BIOS defaults?

Recommended by Wim's BIOS...

I'm trying to get an old Gateway 2000 pc going for a church youth group. I had to clear the old password through the BIOS trick.

My question now is will there be any need for me to put new BIOS settings in when I boot up again? Or does everything in BIOS automatically go back to the factory defaults? If so, that's fine.

If not, how do I get control to do BIOS settings, and how do I know what to put in?

In short, I'm hoping that when I reboot everything will be back to normal without me having to do anything

You can clear the BIOS CMOS settings closing the clear jumper on the motherboard. When you reopen the jumper, all BIOS settings will be back to the default.
Then you can always enter into BIOS pressing Del or F2 (the key is indicated when you power on the pc during the post, typically on the bottom of the screen)

For your data if you clear the partition of the hard disk, recreate a new one and format the space of the partition, you'll be sure that all it's cleared.

}}} When you reopen the jumper, all BIOS settings will be back to the default. {{{

Thanks. This is what I need to know.

Yes, all BIOS settings will be back to the default.

Note that you must enter into BIOS after reopen the jumper and power on the system: you must set HDD settings, because the default settings could be NONE (after CMOS clearing). Otherwise no HDDs are configurated and the pc will not be ready to use.

Oooppsss---how am to know what hdd settings to put in? And, how do I do that?

I can't get into anything in the pc because the password requirement is blocking me. So, unless I can physically examine the hard drive and find a sticker with ID info on it, I won't have a way to find out make/model.

Also, will Windows still be OK after I do this? It's an old computer, and I don't have access to a Windows restore disk.

I don't care about any date in files. That can all be lost, as far as I'm concerned. But, I'd like for Windows to be OK.

What I use in most pcs to identify hardware is BELARC. I could only run BELARC after I clear the password and reset, in this case. But, I need to know the hard drive ID first. I'll look for an ID when I go to take the BIOS jumper out.

May be your BIOS has the setting AUTO for the HDD, so the HD is detected automatically (and set correctly) everytimes you power on the pc.

If not so, you must specify manually all the HD parameters that you can read on the surface of the HD. Note that probably there is a function in BIOS called "HDD auto detection" (or similar) that helps you giving out the parameters of HD and setting automatically in the right place (you must choose the right parameters but between a small choice of combinations, and you can always read on the surface of the HD).
Combinations that you can read on the screen when the pc starts, before Win starts (you can use Pause button).

Windows starts if the HD is set correctly into BIOS, this is the only link between BIOS and System Operatings. If Windows ran correctly in the past, will run correctly even today.

The password is only to access to BIOS or even to start the pc?

I think what you told me is good news. I'll hope it starts automatically, and, if not, that enough info is on the outside of the hard drive to get what I need to get it going when set in.

The password seems to be a BIOS password, and not Windows.

Good to know Windows will be there OK when I get things right with the BIOS/HDD settings.

Remember that after clearing CMOS (and reopen the jumper) the default setting for HDD I think may be NONE, expecially if the pc is old: so you must set at least AUTO.

If AUTO is impossible to set, you must specify HDD parameters, but on the HDD surface you can find typically only: Cylinders, Heads, Sectors and Disk Space. You must specify in BIOS (in manual configuration) also Precomp, Landzone and Mode, that you can't retrieve. So the function HDD auto detection can help you because give you very few combinations of these parameters and the choice will be simple.

Look also at http://www.pc-disk.de/
It's a good site for all about HDD.