There is a risk involved in flashing your BIOS. It is possible for your computer to flash incorrectly or incompletely and you wind up with a non-responsive computer. With that said, flashing your BIOS is relatively easy and quite a bit more safe than it was 10 years ago due to many computers having easy recovery steps either through an on-board backup or automated recovery. Your best bet is to take 30 minutes, read up on how to flash and recover your BIOS -- information should be relatively easy to get from your user manual or online documentation -- and properly prepare a recovery disk or USB if your BIOS supports flash from USB recovery. There's a good chance you won't need the recovery disk, but it's always better to be prepared than to rush around in a panic if something goes wrong. One of the most important things to remember is be patient. Read up on what to expect your computer to do (usually beep in a certain sequence) after a successful flash... and after a bad flash. Wait for the computer to give you that signal before you do anything -- It might take 5 minutes. However, if a longer period of time has passed, the flashing process possibly failed and you should attempt to recover. You MAY want to make two recovery disks, one with the modified BIOS and one with the good BIOS. If you do, try to recover from the modified BIOS first, and then the good BIOS if that fails.
i can make a recovery disk, i have both the modified and the original bios exe files, how do i put them on a usb using the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool because i cant find the dos files anywhere in them. I also still have all the cds that came from dell with my system, just wondering if they might also have bios recovery setup just incase i need it but i am not sure. any help is greatly appreciated.
First, make sure your mobo supports Boot from USB. Two, go into My Computer, right-click on your USB drive, click Format. This will bring up another pop-up. Under File System, select FAT32. Near the bottom, select Quick Format and Create an MS-DOS Startup Disk. You can now boot off of your USB drive. Just add the files you need to the drive and you're done.
there is already a modified bios of the current bios that i am running for the dell dimension 9200 and it is an exe that i can run straight from windows. or do i have to request the bios mod even if i want to restore the original bios?
If you already have the modified BIOS and it was compiled into an .exe, then yes, run it. But make sure it is indeed the modified one and not the original. No, of course not. One question: Why are you trying to restore your original BIOS? As a backup? If you are just trying to upgrade your BIOS, just use the file that you got from the manufacturer's website and upgrade, then flash using the modified BIOS.
That seems counter productive... If the modded BIOS is old, and you upgrade the BIOS, then flashing the modded BIOS will just revert the BIOS to the old version. If you're going to be flashing a modded BIOS, there's no reason to flash a 'clean' BIOS first. Especially since jatty doesn't seem too confident** I would suggest that you try to simplify it as much as possible. That's why I had suggested making a recovery disk with the modded BIOS and using that first if the first flash fails... so that if the recovery using the modded BIOS works, you will be all set and if not, you'll still have the good recovery disk as well. **most likely the first BIOS flash you've done, correct jatty? -- Don't worry, I was nervous my first few times as well... but I've done over 100 flashes (schools computers and a few of my own) and haven't had a single bad flash. Awesome!! Congrats on your successful BIOS flash... wasn't that hard was it?
if the modded bios in the bios mod thread don't have already a "tested by XXXX" note, please make sure you two post a confirmation in that thread i was unsure to flash too, cause i got an expensive i7 board but i saw that people already tested it so i did it and it works fine with no problems
there risks in updating bios and flashing with SLIC 2.1, i've updated my bios over 8 time when ever a new bios is out, im running a i7 evga x58 and there not cheap, you should be fine mate
I used the flash my bios modded by one of the gurus here and guess what happened. My PC was dead. Has to replace the Motherboard. Never gonna try this again
Many computers have been lost during a bios update, even an official bios from the manufacturer. If this happens your computer is done for until you get a new bios chip. The best insurance is to buy a preprogrammed bios chip, that way if something goes wrong you just swap chips. There is a guy on ebay that sells programmed bios chips for like $10, its good insurance.