Ibm netvista 8307 - bios problem

[s1wood]

Hello, I have just taken over the above machine and am having trouble with changing hard drives (IDE) - it is only happy with the original single cable and refuses to start if I try to use a cable with a secondary connection on it. I have tried various combinations of jumper position and cable, but the real problem is that once I have started this I cannot get into the BIOS, it stops at the IBM screen and pressing enter just removes the 'enter' instruction, even after I restored the original set-up. I only got things going again by taking the BIOS battery out briefly. This is too alarming for me to continue experimenting - is there any way round it? The BIOS does allow for more than one HDD.
Susan

 

[o1die]

Try a new motherboard battery. the cr2032 "button battery" sells for as little as $1.50 at various stores. Frys has them; most computer shops carry them; you might even find them at walmart or target. Also be sure one of your old drives is set as a slave or secondary using the jumper on the drive if it's ide. Sata drives don't have any jumpers. I boot up with just one drive the first time; then connect the other drives while windows is running; it will set them up as secondary drives.