It's not the first, but the second. Credits go to Andyp. He found the both MOV commands to be disabled. I only reproduced the way to. Skeilio I'll think about it.....and will reply...
Once again, WinPhlash didn't worked under Windows 7 (not even using XP SP2 compatibility and running as Administrator), so I burned a Windows XP Live CD, flashed the previous BIOS version and then the modded. I haven't even rebooted between both flashes.
On BIOS VGN-SZ220 I tried WinPhlash under 7 under admin and dos Phlash 11,14,15,16 as well as the one from the latest crisis disk Thanks
Yen Success! I was looking in some translated Chinese forums and later on found references in these forums to some command line switches Winphlash.exe /spi /bbl /sd BIOS.WPH and it worked instantly from within Windows 7 I believe this is for the -149 errors only I thought I would let you know Oh quick question would this bios also work on the VGN-SZ370 Thanks again for your time
For anyone else reading this I would not use the above unless normal methods fail and even then only when you get the -149 error as the BBL option which overwrites the bootblock if any error occurs during this flash your system will be bricked and will not be recoverable.
Thanks a lot for that info. Have you used the original winphlash? Or a special one. The bios for SZ370 isn't it R0096N0?
I used the last one supplied the special one 1.6.2.1.S1 if you like I can reflash using the normal one but I believe it would work just fine with the command lines switches above and yes the 370 is a R0096N0
LOL, I was going to say in my original post that I didn't know who I should congratulate Sony or the Phoenix team for producing a less inferior BIOS than some of the Award or AMI. I say inferior because they really put some work into making sure that the EEPROM doesn't become corrupted from "user error". With that phlash tool the /bootbloc is correct. I had tried the /BBL because I had seen a list for the phlash16 that had the /BBL switch among a few variants but the writer at Sony, Soichi Sato, must have changed it to /bootbloc because I found a file about this particular version. He also incorporated the /pf=1 for debug boards, /system for just the ROM, and /KBC. This phlash tool version had been modified by Sony and can be used with other supported flash devices, mainboard manufacturers, etc but those particular switches are undocumented in the phlash /? help file. You maybe onto something with the phlash tool not updating the DMI correctly with the /mode=n switch. I do not receive an error when using the /mode=n switch even though it's not documented. However, I had a big clue about the tool whenever I knew a particular switch was not supported because the tool would not execute but would instead display the help file. For example; /a /bb /bbu, etc. would stop the program from executing and open the help file instead of executing the other switches used. I will attempt the modified winphlash tool that you supplied to Skeilio for this particular notebook. I'll save using flashrom for the last resort update tool. Thanks so much Yen.