ASRock UEFI CMOS battery reset
I have a desktop that had been sitting around for a while.
When I booted it up to install Linux, I couldn’t get past a message that was something like this:
Date and time not set. Press F2 or DEL to run setup for press F1 to load defaults and continue.
That’s not verbatim, but pretty close.
The problem is that no matter what choice I made, it always restarted and put me back at the same message.
Note: The use of "CMOS" below is by convention. I have no idea if the motherboard settings are still using actual complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor technology, but we call it that because that’s what it originally was.
Replace the CMOS battery
It turned out, I needed to replace the CMOS battery, the standard CR2032 lithium coin cell battery on the motherboard. The original was over a decade old and finally ran out of charge.
Reset the CMOS memory
Replacing the battery got me past the date and time loop, but then I ran into another problem.
For some reason, UEFI thought I needed to enter a password. That’s weird, because I’d never set one and had never needed one before.
The way around this was to completely clear CMOS memory by removing the new CMOS battery I had just installed, unplugging the power supply entirely and then pressing the power button on the case for about 15 seconds to completely clear any energy remaining in the PSU capacitors.
Then I plugged it in, booted up, and everything worked great.
(I later found the header pins that would have cleared CMOS memory down along the bottom of the board, which I could have tried if using removing power sources and draining the power didn’t work.)
Set the time
Finally, I needed to set the date and time. This turned out to be impossible with ASRock’s UEFI with just a keyboard plugged in (!!!).
The secret is to plug in a mouse, then go to the Exit portion of the menu, and then click on the date/time in the bottom right corner.
With the addition of a mouse to UEFI, the firmware makers have unlocked a whole new level of insane ways to hide stuff in these arcane interfaces. Way to go, guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Boot menu
At last, I was able to hit F11 for the boot menu, pick my USB "thumb" drive with the Slackware installer, and was installing Linux within moments.