# Trouble booting ASUS mobo (P4SDX) from CD [SOLVED]

## nonhuman

I recently got my hands on my late father-in-law's PC from my mother-in-law's attic. It's pretty old, running a P4 with an ASUS P4SDX motherboard, but I figured it might be fun to throw Gentoo on it and just have a computer to play around with. However, I'm running into a couple problems.

First: the existing install of Windows fails to recognize the keyboard (both USB and PS/2) although the BIOS has no problem with either which makes it impossible to even log into it as is.

Second: I can't, for the life of me, figure out how to boot this thing from the optical drive. The BIOS screen only gives me two options, and neither of them gets me into anything like anormal BIOS settings screen.

With those two problems combined it's basically nothing more than a very outdated paperweight. Does anyone have any idea how I can boot this thing off a cd?

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## dE_logics

The PC appears to be ~7 years old.

 *Quote:*   

> First: the existing install of Windows fails to recognize the keyboard (both USB and PS/2) although the BIOS has no problem with either which makes it impossible to even log into it as is. 

 

Oh, you gotta reformat it again you know, just got rot with time.

 *Quote:*   

> I can't, for the life of me, figure out how to boot this thing from the optical drive. The BIOS screen only gives me two options, and neither of them gets me into anything like anormal BIOS settings screen. 

 

You mean you can't go to the Bios?

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## nonhuman

 *dE_logics wrote:*   

> The PC appears to be ~7 years old.

 

Yeah, there'sabouts.

 *Quote:*   

> Oh, you gotta reformat it again you know, just got rot with time.

 

Good to know. I've got no interest in running Windows on it, just in retrieving any files of interest that might be on the drives. I can always pull them and mount them on another box for that.

 *Quote:*   

> You mean you can't go to the Bios?

 

Right. I mean the startup screen... I've tried pretty much all the F keys, and I just can't get the thing to do anything other than boot into Windows are prompt me for a floppy to flash the bios from... I've even tried looking up manuals for the mobo, but it's so old they don't seem to be available online...

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## jongeek

The manual says to press <Alt>-<F2> during POST. 

Manual here: http://www.fixya.com/support/p362922-asus_p4sdx_motherboard/manual-11143.

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## nonhuman

 *jongeek wrote:*   

> The manual says to press <Alt>-<F2> during POST. 
> 
> Manual here: http://www.fixya.com/support/p362922-asus_p4sdx_motherboard/manual-11143.

 

Oddly, Alt-F2 (before or during POST) takes you to the Bios flasher... However thanks to trying to do it during POST I noticed that for a split second the screen said to push DEL during POST to get to setup, and that's what did it. Currently backing up the existing files for my wife, and then I'll be free to do as I please with this machine!

Thanks!

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