Disabled HDD and unable to access bios.

[johros]

Well I was tinkering around with getting Linux to work on an external HD. And could not get the boot order correct. So I disabled the internal HD thinking that I could enable it again when I wanted to boot from it.

Now the problem is that I cannot enable the HD. When I press the access IBM button I get an error message: "unable to authenticate system"
(I have searched the forums but havnt found any answer)

As I see it there could be to things that causes this problem:
1. When I press the access IBM button the T40 tries to access the pre desktop area on the HD but is unable to do so because the HD is disabled.

2. The HD is encrypted and this causes problems.

System: IBM T40, 512mb ram, radeon 7500 mobile

Any help would be great I'd hate to contact computer support trying to explain this

[GomJabbar]

Instead of pressing the blue Access IBM button, press F1 at the beginning of the boot sequence. That should allow you to get back into the BIOS setup menu.

[johros]

Well I tried pressing F! and it didnt work the T40 still wanted to load the predesktop area.

But I found a solution, I unscrewed the HD and that forced the T40 to directly go to the bios setup. And i got it to work again