Yes you must install the certificate, other wise no activation. Yes you can make a installation DVD with preinstalled certificate. I think there was a thread about it.
And i'm verry sorry to hear that. But there is always a risk to brick your mobo when flashing the bios, modded or unmodded!!
Bad Flash Bye the way, do you (Fzeven) or anybody know some ways to recover from bad flash in Asus mobos with Award Bios....? Please post to help. TOMICULE
What about clear CMOS / remove battery? Only way I know is to make a bootable floppy with flashtool and bios on it and autoexec.bat that executes flash process. Insert and switch on PC... BTW: IMO it was a bad flash, mod1 is modded with best knowledge.... This is the bad side of our work.. I'm sorry as well...... Yen