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Weak or dead CMOS battery question

W

wpshooter

Golden Member
If the CMOS battery is weak or dead, is it normal to have to go into the BIOS/SETUP and save/write the settings and then exit in order for the system to boot to the operating system, i.e. be able to find the hard drive boot sector ? If this is not done on the computer I am referring to it says that it can not find the hard drive.

That is what is occuring on my friends old computer (and I mean really old - about 20 years, yes I have told him a multitude of times that it is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay past time for a new computer) . This computer is so old that the CMOS battery is a lithum but it is about 1 inch square and 3 inches long - not a coin cell battery.

In order words if he turns the power off to the system and comes back the next day the system will NOT boot without going into BIOS and then save and exit.

Thanks.
 
Last edited:
Yes, that is normal for a machine with a dead CMOS battery. Newer boards will generally try all available boot devices before giving up, but older ones did not always do that.
 
Radio Shack used to sell battery mods so you could snip off the old battery and use real batteries you could replace.
 
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