Asus --> Del - Enter BIOS, F8 - Boot menu (very confusing since Windows also uses F8 for the recovery mode boot menu, so you have to press F8, then when the boot menu appears, chose the boot device, then have one hand on Enter and the other on F8 again, so that you hit Enter and start tapping like crazy on F8 to enter the rescue mode menu… annoying as hell)

GigaByte --> Del or F2 - Enter BIOS, F12 - Boot menu, Alt + F10 - Copy main BIOS to backup BIOS

MSI --> Del or F2 - Enter BIOS, F11 - Boot menu

ASRock --> Del or F2 - Enter BIOS, F11 or F10 - Boot menu

Biostar --> Del - Enter BIOS, F9 - Boot menu

Intel --> F2 - Enter BIOS, F10 or F12 - Boot menu

I used to remember some of the brand name PCs as well, but time has gotten the best of me 🤷.

The boot process was simple, and the BIOS had just one simple task: load and execute the first 512 bytes of the disk that was designated as the boot device. That’s it.

This is actually what I love about MBR nowadays. It’s simple enough so no one wants to mess with it and render the rig unbootable and obscure enough so no one (MS) actually checks if there is anything there that might trigger warnings (non-MS code).