[Solved (maybe)] My T30 won't boot...

[newyorkpaulie]

I can get as far as the BIOS Setup Utility, but choosing Restart brings me back to the splash screen with the 2 choices: F1 - IBM BIOS Setup or F12 - choose temporary boot device. Of these 2 choices, only the 1st (setup) gives me a menu... the 2nd does not respond. Any ideas what to try? It won't read any live CDs and doesn't appear to be reading the hard drive (I tried a couple others in the slot with the same noneffect).

[Added Later]: I let it sit with that (seemingly) frozen splash screen and a few minutes later I saw that the booting procedure had started, so right now things seem OK. A bit disturbing though, so if anyone has experienced a similar problem I would be grateful to hear. Thanks.

[Majestic]

If you have never changed the motherboard backup battery it might be something to consider. I've seen similar problems on a couple of desktops where the battery starts getting weak. The battery will still keep the time and date, but causes the system to lose the stored hardware configuration in the BIOS/CMOS. On the next boot up the system has to go through the process of identifying the installed hardware before it will boot into the OS.

[newyorkpaulie]

If you have never changed the motherboard backup battery it might be something to consider. I've seen similar problems on a couple of desktops where the battery starts getting weak. The battery will still keep the time and date, but causes the system to lose the stored hardware configuration in the BIOS/CMOS. On the next boot up the system has to go through the process of identifying the installed hardware before it will boot into the OS.

Thanks - I will look for one on eBay.