Accessing the BIOS when the POST screen clears too quickly

Products

• VMware Desktop Hypervisor
• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

This article assists you in gaining access to the BIOS options of the virtual machine in the event that it passes too quickly to interact with the screen.

 

Resolution

To make it easier to access the BIOS setup screen, edit the configuration (.vmx) of the virtual machine and add or edit one of these options:

• bios.forceSetupOnce = "TRUE"
  
  This forces entry to the BIOS setup at startup.
   
• bios.bootDelay = "xxxx"
  
  This adds a delay to the initial POST screen, showing it for longer and giving you more time to access the BIOS setup, where xxxx is the number of milliseconds to show the POST screen (There are 1000 milliseconds in a second.). The maximum value for the boot delay is 10000 milliseconds or 10 seconds.

Fusion

To make changes to the .vmx (virtual machine configuration file):

1. Shutdown the virtual machine.
2. Edit your .vmx file to include one of the two options above. For more information, see Editing the .vmx file for your Fusion virtual machine.
   
   Note: To access BIOS Setup on Fusion 8.x , click virtual machine > Power On To Firmware.

Player

To make changes to the .vmx (virtual machine configuration file):

1. Shut down the virtual machine.
2. Edit the .vmx file to add one of the two options above.

ESXi /vCenter Server 

To make changes to the configuration file:

1. Shutdown the virtual machine.
2. Right Click the VM from web-client/ HTML client and select edit setting
3. Select 'Boot Options' under 'VM Option'  
4. Check for Force BIOS Setup.

 

Workstation 7.x and later

To enter the BIOS setup for the guest operating system, click VM > Power > Power On to BIOS.
Note: For newer Workstation versions, click VM > Power > Power On to Firmware.

 

Additional Information

For related information, see Validating the .vmx settings of a virtual machine