I'm preparing for an emergency that I hope I nev

[DaveTN]

I'm preparing for an emergency that I hope I never have and have had some problems getting my TC1000 to boot from the recovery CD (Just to test if it works)
I have a HiVal external USB2.0 CDRW (40x12x48) and the TC will not boot from it so I pressed the jog dial at bootup and tried to make changes in the BIOS. on the first page (main) nothing can be changed and there is a message on the right side of the screen stating "All items on this menu cannot be modified in user mode. If any items require changes, please consult your systems supervisor". Well since I am the "supervisor, what do I do?
On Advanced/Boot, the only choices I have are Removeable devices, hard drive and CD-ROM drive. I do not have a choice for USB drive.

If while booting, I hit the jog dial and select another boot device, I still boot to XP/TabletPC.

My BIOS version is 0f09 (I'm waiting to flash the latest, but don't want to take any chances unless I know I can recover.)

Anyway, Is my BIOS Locked or is that cnfiguration normal? Should I see USB 2.0 as a boot device? and, from the looks of it, should I go out an buy the Storix external CD/RW (seems to be pretty popular here).

Thanks

David

[DaveTN]

OK, to partially answer my own question, it was the external CD Drive. I got rid of the HiVal and got the Storix CDRW/DVD from Tigerdirect and I can boot from it now. I downloaded the latest Compaq BIOS but I still get that funny statement on the first screen that I need to contact the administrator if I want to make any changes. Anyway, the BIOS is not set with any passwords, so I cant figure out whats up or if it is just normal.

Have a safe weekend everyone,

David