Are you sure the hard drive is good? The reason being is that any failing piece of hardware can make the bios act this way and its usually the hard drive that causes this. Disconnect the hard drive and test.
Thats why I said to disconnect hard drive to test. If that don't solve it then I would try resetting the cmos by shutting down machine, unplug power cord from power supply, remove cmos battery, press the power button on the case for 10 seconds then wait 10 minutes. Then reinsert battery, reconnect power cord and access bios to see if it freezes. If it does, then you have a hardware issue somewhere.
What PC/board is it? Some early boards didn't allow USB peripherals in BIOS unless 'Legacy Mode' was enabled, but that was a long time ago.
Can you access the boot menu at F11 or F12?
I am a total newbie and I do not see how to disconnect the hard drive to test.Can you explain more ?