Turning on the Computer for the First Time

Now you’re done with the easy part. Once you are sure that the computer turns on when you flip the power switch, you can close the case up and push it away under your desk. 

But before you start installing the operating system, you want to make sure that the computer's Basic Input/Output System ("BIOS") is set right and has detected all your components correctly.

		Turn the computer on. You will see a screen something like this. It will prompt you press the delete key to enter setup. Press delete.
This is your computer’s BIOS, the computer’s basic set of information about itself. BIOS screens are all different, depending on the motherboard.
		One of the BIOS screens (this one is called “SoftMenu III”) shows the the speed of your processor.
Another screen (here called “Standard CMOS Features”) will show your IDE devices (hard disk, CD drives). Here, the IDE devices have not been detected yet. We’ll have to change that.
		There are four selections: IDE Primary Master, IDE Primary Slave, IDE Secondary Master, IDE Secondary Slave. As in the picture, we will set all the values to “Auto” to allow the system to automatically detect these devices.
After doing so, our IDE devices have been properly detected. The hard drive is listed as the IDE Primary Master, and the DVD drive as IDE Primary Slave.
		Yet another screen (here “Advanced BIOS Features”) allows you to change your computer’s “boot order.” This is the order in which the computer which check the different drives to try to find an operating system.
For my first boot device, I usually choose “Floppy,” “CD-ROM” as the second device, and “HDD-0” (the first hard drive) as the third.  Choose to quit and save settings to restart your computer.