h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

very interesting, but i'm not very clever when it comes to computers. i know that all the F keys do something when windows is booting up like access the BIOS and safe mode, but i don't know which ones do what. do you? or where i can find this out?

Yes, the BIOS is accessed by either F2, or the "Delete" key (not the backspace key). The computer will tell you when it's loading which one to press but unfortunately many new computers are so fast it whizzes by before you notice. The Delete key is the more often used. HP computers use F2 as do a few others.

Seriosly though, don't mess about with the settings in there unless you need to change something.

In addition in Windows 95 you can press F8 when the words "Windows 95 is starting" and it lets you into a hidden menu with options like:

Start Windows
Start in DOS mode
Start in Safe Mode
Step by step start up
etc.

Later versions of windows have this option but it can be turned off and in most computers it is turned off so the words "Windows 95 is starting" never appear.

I hope this answers your question.

F-5 in DOS and Win95 bypasses system startup files (Autoexec.bat and config.sys). In win95 it's not very useful because it will try and load the windows kernel anyway. See F-8:

From DOS 5.0 onwards, including Win95, 98, 98se and ME: F-8 at startup will drop you into a menu which includes 'Normal', 'Logged', 'Safe mode', 'Safe mode with network', 'Step by step', 'Command prompt only' and 'Safe Mode Command Prompt Only'. The last option will get you a command.com prompt, which may allow you to get in and remove the offending software, or atleast disable it, as a last resort. 'Safe Mode' is a limited environment with virtually no drivers loaded, and no support for non BIOS-supported devices (i.e. CD-ROM, network drives)

WinNT, Win2k (and probably WinXP but I'm not going there), pressing SPACE during the initial loader (white blobs turning into a white line at the bottom of the screen) provides some sort of menu that allows you to load the 'last known good' configuration among other things.

WinXP: Boot your CD, and use the rescue options. You _DID_ make a rescue disc didn't you.

Linux with LILO: Use the left CONTROL, or left SHIFT to get the LILO Boot: prompt. Boot your kernel (or the previous kernel assuming it's still in the config) with the argument 'single' which will get you to single user mode. The root filesystem will typically be mounted read-only. Remount it with 'mount -o remount /' and you will probably be able to fix your /etc/rc.d/* files or whatever is screwing up your system. Don't remount read-write if you suspect your disks are messed up due to unexpected shutdowns/reboots (run fsck /dev/insert-root-partition-name-here) and fix the volume first.

Linux with hosed LILO config (presumably why it won't boot). Boot from a distribution CD. Most have some means of getting to a shell where you can mount your root filesystem on /mnt, fix your /etc/lilo.conf and re-run LILO with 'lilo -r /mnt -C /etc/lilo.conf'

Disk structure so messed up you can't recognise your OS: Reinstall, and recover user data from the backup, which of course you keep up to date. (There is a lot to be said for having a tape drive on your system)