HELP! Flashed wrong bios?!

Discussion in 'Windows Vista' started by bokkoman, Mar 14, 2008.

  1. bokkoman

    bokkoman MDL Junior Member

    Mar 4, 2008
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    #1 bokkoman, Mar 14, 2008
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 20, 2017
  2. Roman

    Roman MDL Addicted

    Jun 5, 2007
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    Clear CMOS?

    You have to flash modified bios with Afudos: Afudos /ixxxx.rom /pbnc /n
     
  3. bokkoman

    bokkoman MDL Junior Member

    Mar 4, 2008
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    I tried clearing the CMOS by removing the battery, there was also a jumper, but it didnt say clear cmos, but i still switched it (but i think it was to disable my whole pc).
    So i'm still stuck :(
     
  4. westmassguy

    westmassguy MDL Junior Member

    May 7, 2007
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    Try this:
    Unplug the machine. Remove everything except the vid card, hard drive, floppy, cdrom, and one stick of memory. Remove the CMOS battery, and move the jumper to the reset position.
    Leave it there for 10 min at least.
    Now re-insert the battery, and move the CMOS jumper back.
    Connect a PS2 keyboard NOT USB. Press and hold down the "Insert" key and power up the machine.
    If all goes well, it will reset all BIOS settings to a "Safe Boot" setting allowing you to boot the machine.
    If that fails, I'm afraid you will have to purchase a new preprogrammed BIOS chip.
    There are several sites online that specialise in BIOS chips.
     
  5. 2centsworth

    2centsworth MDL Senior Member

    Feb 12, 2008
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    #5 2centsworth, Mar 14, 2008
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2008
    Please start with step 3 or 2 in your case. I had an asus p5b-e i spent hours resetting cmos and holding down bootblock key combos....finally it beeped accepted a recovery floppy with image after hours of no signs of life except the drives cycled and fans turned on. Don't give up easily. Bootblocks usually are intact and the recovery floppy method works in those cases. Unplugging power for a while may help, may not, u must use a PS2 keyboard...not necessary to use ISA/PCI video card necessarily. Again bootblock is usually intact and just needs resetting (eg:ctrl+home).

    NOTE: ASUS seems to have directions to name the rom file to a specific name when using a recovery image on a floppy disc method....usually the name of the board . Check your asus motherboard manual.

    BTW: NEVER flash an asus BIOS from within windows, always use afudos and a dos bootable disc. Windows flashes for asus are notorious for failures.

    Disclaimer: I shamelessly copy and pasted this from somewhere else. I forgot where.
    Step 1:
    Boot Block Recovery For Free You don't need to pay a measly sum of dollars just to recover from a boot block mode. Here it is folks: AWARD Bootblock recovery: That shorting trick should work if the boot block code is not corrupted, and it should not be if /sb switch is used when flashing the bios (instead of /wb switch). The 2 pins to short to force a checksum error varies from chip to chip. But these are usually the highest-numbered address pins (A10 and above). These are the pins used by the system to read the System BIOS (original.bin for award v6), calculate the ROM checksum and see if it's valid before decompressing it into memory, and subsequently allow Bootblock POST to pass control over to the System BIOS. You just have to fool the system into believing that the System BIOS is corrupt. This you do by giving your system a hard time reading the System BIOS by shorting the 2 high address pins. And when it could not read the System BIOS properly, ROM Checksum Error is detected "so to speak" and Bootblock recovery is activated. Sometimes, any combination of the high address pins won't work to force a checksum error in some chips, like my Winbond W49F002U. But shorting the #WE pin with the highest-numbered address pin (A17) worked for this chip. You just have to be experimentative if you're not comfortable with "hot flashing" or "replacement BIOS". But to avoid further damage to your chip if you're not sure which are the correct pins to short, measure the potential between the 2 pins by a voltmeter while the system is on. If the voltage reading is zero (or no potential at all), it is safe to short these pins. But do not short the pins while the system is on. Instead, power down then do the short, then power up while still shorting. And as soon as you hear 3 beeps (1 long, 2 short), remove the short at once so that automatic reflashing from Drive A can proceed without errors (assuming you had autoexec.bat in it). About how to do the shorting, the tip of a screwdriver would do. But with such minute pins on the PLCC chip, I'm pretty comfortable doing it with the tip of my multi-tester or voltmeter probe. Short the pins at the point where they come out of the chip.

    Step 2:
    AMIBIOS Recovery bootblock: 1. Copy a known working BIOS image for your board to a floppy and rename it to AMIBOOT.ROM. 2. Insert the floppy in your system's floppydrive. 3. Power on the system while holding CTRL+Home keys. Release the keys when you hear a beep and/or see the floppy light coming on. 4 . Just wait until you hear 4 beeps. When 4 beeps are heard the reprogramming of the System Block BIOS went succesfull, so then you may restart your system. Some alternative keys that can be used to force BIOS update (only the System Block will be updated so it's quite safe): CTRL+Home= restore missing code into system block and clear CMOS when programming went ok. CTRL+Page Up= restore missing code into system block and clear CMOS or DMI when programming went ok. CTRL+Page Down= restore missing code into system block and do not clear CMOS and DMI area when programming went ok Btw: the alternative keys work only with AMIBIOS 7 or higher (so for example an AMI 6.26 BIOS can be only recovered by using CTRL+Home keys). Boot Block Recovery for FREE

    Step 3:
    ************************************************ BLACKOUT Flashing ************************************************* Recovering a Corrupt AMI BIOS chip With motherboards that use BOOT BLOCK BIOS it is possible to recover a corrupted BIOS because the BOOT BLOCK section of the BIOS, which is responsible for booting the computer remains unmodified. When an AMI BIOS becomes corrupt the system will appear to start, but nothing will appear on the screen, the floppy drive light will come on and the system will access the floppy drive repeatedly. If your motherboard has an ISA slot and you have an old ISA video card lying around, put the ISA video card in your system and connect the monitor. The BOOT BLOCK section of the BIOS only supports ISA video cards, so if you do not have an ISA video card or your motherboard does not have ISA slots, you will have to restore your BIOS blind, with no monitor to show you what’s going on. AMI has integrated a recovery routine into the BOOT BLOCK of the BIOS, which in the event the BIOS becomes corrupt can be used to restore the BIOS to a working state. The routine is called when the SYSTEM BLOCK of the BIOS is empty. The restore routine will access the floppy drive looking for a BIOS file names AMIBOOT.ROM, this is why the floppy drive light comes on and the drive spins. If the file is found it is loaded into the SYSTEM BLOCK of the BIOS to replace the missing information. To restore your BIOS simply copy a working BIOS file to a floppy diskette and rename it AMIBOOT.ROM, then insert it into the computer while the power is on. The diskette does not need to be bootable or contain a flash utility. After about four minutes the system will beep four times. Remove the floppy diskette from the drive and reboot the computer. The BIOS should now be restored. Recovering a Corrupt AWARD BIOS With AWARD BIOS the process is similar but still a bit different. To recover an AWARD BIOS you will need to create a floppy diskette with a working BIOS file in .BIN format, an AWARD flash utility and an AUTOEXEC.BAT file. AWARD BIOS will not automatically restore the BIOS information to the SYSTEM BLOCK for this reason you will need to add the commands necessary to flash the BIOS in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. The system will run the AUTOEXE.BAT file, which will in turn flash the BIOS. This is fairly easy. Here are the steps you need to take. · Create a bootable floppy diskette · Copy the BIOS file and flash utility to the diskette ·
     
  6. westmassguy

    westmassguy MDL Junior Member

    May 7, 2007
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    Nice guide 2centsworth.
    Hope it helps him
     
  7. bokkoman

    bokkoman MDL Junior Member

    Mar 4, 2008
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    #7 bokkoman, Mar 15, 2008
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2008
    (OP)
    Thanks 2centsworth, thats a nice tut. But i already returned the motherboard, i only had it for 3 days. Only negative now is that I have to wait a few weeks, mobo was out of stock :(.

    Next time it happens, ill try that method. I have no floppy drive connect so I couldn't see it light up. Though, my pc only went on for 2seconds and went off, and on for 2secs and off, this went on forever. So i dont know if that method would even help, cause 2seconds is just to fast, and next to that, bioses are 2mb and wont fit a 1,44mb floppy :(
     
  8. grayfox

    grayfox MDL Novice

    May 19, 2007
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    It actually fits in nicely in a floppy disc. Because Mb is megabit and MB is megabyte. 2Mb = 256KB and the popular FDD is 1.44MB = 11.52Mb (the real size of a formatted FDD is a little smaller).
     
  9. bokkoman

    bokkoman MDL Junior Member

    Mar 4, 2008
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    I meant 2 megabyte, they won't fit a floppy because i already tried ;)
     
  10. rynoism

    rynoism MDL Novice

    Sep 17, 2015
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    Hi mate,

    i saw one of your posts relating to award/ami bios recovery.... ive got a question for ya!

    ive got an asus u31f laptop, and it appears to have a corrupted bios, it won't start up, just power cycles, unless i hit ctrl+home, in which case it reads from usb... i've tried every type of file and file name, but nothing ever comes of it.... do you think i may need to try shorting the pins to cause a checksum error?

    or

    is the fact that it is trying to ready from usb, suggesting that all i need to do is put the correct data on the usb and itll be saved?
     
  11. tnx

    tnx MDL Expert

    Sep 2, 2008
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    Correct me if I am wrong but the P53e has a "crash free bios"
    Is it possible to download a bios from Asus and put it on a usb and reflash to clear the corrupt one.

    And if it owt like my Asus Z77 all the board needs is power to flash a new bios.
    There will be a dedicated usb port on the rear and the bios file will have to be named properly.
    Format the usb into fat32 addd the bios file, sling it in the usb and press and hold the bios flash button and bobs ya uncle.

    Sorry if i am wrong about that board.