BIOS Flashing and Recovery
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Everyone who's really into knowing their computer has at one point wanted to update the BIOS for the simple reason of possibly just wanting the latest features, sometimes it proves to be a necessity to get stability for your system or even recognize a CPU it otherwise wouldn't be able to. Now, generally the manufacturers tell you to NOT flash the BIOS unless otherwise absolutely needed, but come on, with the age of over clocking and everybody wanting to push their computers to the limits our curiosity gets the better of us and just possibly that latest version will give you the stability or features you absolutely have to have.
Any sane person will tell you that flashing the BIOS is definitely not a fun process. One screw up here and you could turn your nice motherboard into a lovely little paperweight. This can be caused by flashing the BIOS with the incorrect BIOS Version for your board or perhaps power was disrupted to your computer during BIOS Flashing. Either way this leads to catastrophe and now the question remains. What do we do now? Well first off I intend to cover a little bit of the basics of flashing the BIOS. Your BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) is a tiny little chip on your motherboard. Most newer boards this chip can actually be removed and this is needed for hot flashing. I'll get to hot flashing a little later.
The BIOS contains all the basic information for the computer at start up. Without this information your computer can no longer POST and is basically useless. So when dealing with a BIOS flash make sure you READ READ READ because nothing will make your day sour than flashing with the wrong BIOS. Most newer boards today come with programs that can flash your BIOS within windows. ABit has what’s simply called ABit Flash Menu. The One click update has been known to accidentally select the wrong BIOS and then you're S.O.L. So generally if you're going to do a windows based BIOS Flash you should find the correct BIOS yourself and use the 'Update from File' Function. MSI Boards also have a live utility update to update the BIOS within windows.
Flashing within windows is still considered somewhat risky and most will agree that a dos based flash will increase the chances of success. I've personally flashed 3 times within windows and have had no problems, however the third time I made the mistake of flashing with the wrong file. This indeed did render my computer useless but I'll get to how you go about fixing a situation like this in one moment. If you wish to see the maker if your BIOS, you can simply enter the BIOS and the name will be at the top. Phoenix and Award combined back in 1998 so some cases you will see Phoenix - Award BIOS. Award is the maker in this instance.
If you're going to flash within windows absolutely make sure you have the most up to date flash utility via your manufacturer website. Same goes with DOS. With AWARD BIOS's, award flash utility v8.23 is the minimum recommended version for a proper flash.
Flashing within Dos
First you will need to create a boot disk. Simply insert a floppy and in My computer right click on the Floppy Drive and choose Format. Now towards the bottom you should see a box that can be checked that says "Create MS-DOS Boot Disk" Check this box then hit start and that's all you have to do. Once that is done you now have a bootable disk. The next thing is to put on the appropriate drivers and flash utility. You HAVE to have a flash utility and then the actual file that contains the BIOS information usually either .bin or .rom extension. Copy the flash utility and BIOS files to the floppy disk. If the files contain an Autoexec.bat and it asks you to overwrite it when you go to copy the files to the floppy you want to hit YES-OVERWRITE EXISTING FILE. The autoexec that you will be adding to the floppy will initiate the flash program. If you want the floppy to load and start the flash utility yourself, then simply do not add the autoexec.bat
Restart your computer and make sure within the BIOS menu that the Floppy drive is the first in the boot sequence. So with the floppy loaded as the first boot device and your disk with the flash utility on it in your floppy drive you boot up your computer as normal. If you overwrote the autoexec bat that was on the floppy that was created when you formatted it to an MS-DOS Boot disk, then the flashing program will start up and immediately start flashing your BIOS. So at this point you want to make sure there will be NO power interruptions. Usually it will ask you if you want to save your old BIOS. This is up to you if you want to or not. I personally usually don't save it, but I guess I could be considered a risk taker like that. If you're a little paranoid and its possibly your first time then I'd suggest saving it just incase.
If you didn't overwrite the autoexec file then you will just be brought to an A:\ prompt. You can type in dir to see what the contents of the disk are. You then will want to type in the name of your flash utility and hit enter. Then it will ask you what file to FLASH the bios with. Putting the autoexec on the floppy starts the flash utility, types in the file name, and begins the process for you so that's the easiest as long as you indeed have the right BIOS type. You will see a message of success or failure and hopefully it's success, then all you'll need to do is restart and your new BIOS is in place, but remember it'll be set to defaults so you will need to go back in and reset your CPU FSB and any other timings you might have had once before.
BIOS Recovery
There are a few ways to do this. If you are lucky enough that the boot sector of your BIOS didn't get corrupt and your computer still posts and you can put in a floppy. Then all you have to do is follow your normal dos based flashing and it'll replace it no problem. Now...the problem REALLY arises when you’ve flashed your BIOS and the next thing you know you've received the black screen of death. No beeps, no video, power on, and that's it.....this is when you've officially turned your board into a circuit filled paperweight. If you happen to have the EXACT motherboard laying around then you'll be able to save yourself some money. It has to be the EXACT motherboard, no exceptions. If you have an NF7-S v2 then you need an NF7-S v2 board...period. There are a special set of tools you need to remove the BIOS, but if you're feeling brave and like to really take your chances like myself...then get a strong paperclip and bend a little hook at the end and I mean little. The bend needs to be maybe a quarter of an inch. You can then put this in one of the open corners in the socket the BIOS chip sits in. Use the little hook to get it under the chip and pry it out. This won't work if you use a small wimpy paperclip so make sure you get a big thick one that’s a little difficult to bend. Remember....a paperclip is metal....metal is conductive....if you stay in the little corner and get under the actual BIOS Chip you will be fine...avoid touching ANY connectors within the BIOS socket or anything around. If you use some electrical tape to thinly wrap the paperclip, you now have a rubber non electrically conductive BIOS removal tool! Remember don't just wrap the tape around the paperclip but also over the tip. It doesn't help to make the stick of the paperclip non-conductive just to leave a nice little tip for something to spark to.
If you use some electrical tape to thinly wrap the paperclip, you now have a rubber non electrically conductive BIOS removal tool! Remember don't just wrap the tape around the paperclip but also over the tip. It doesn't help to make the stick of the paperclip non-conductive just to leave a nice little tip for something to spark to.
I've removed my BIOS chip with the system turned on many times using this method but don't come crying back if you stick in a paperclip and you get a nice jolt.
You can see a picture of the appropriate BIOS tool here:
It's the black pair of large looking tweezers.
That image came from this site
www.cybercpu.net/review/bios_savior/index.asp
Which offers what is called a BIOS Savior which basically allows you to have two bios chips and if one fails then there's a switch that allows you to switch to a working separate BIOS....so yes essentially you have Dual BIOS, but only one is active at any given time.
Back to hot flashing....what this means is that you will be removing and replacing the BIOS chip while the system is 'hot' or otherwise...turned on. To hot flash your corrupted BIOS...you first need to remove the corrupted BIOS chip from your board. From here place in a non-corrupted BIOS chip. Remember...the BIOS chip you use has to come from the EXACT board that you have. So if you don’t have another copy of your motherboard you can order a new BIOS chip and when it arrives you can then use the Hot flash method to restore the corrupted BIOS and then you'll have two BIOS chips incase again if one gets a failed flash.
You can get Spare BIOS chips from excaliberpc.com
So now that you've got your new BIOS chip you can either pop it into your board and be happy with it and throw out the other BIOS chip or you could do the better nerd way and hot flash that corrupted puppy! What you'll need to do...is insert your new BIOS chip. Make sure that your floppy is first in the boot sequence. Also it's a good idea to go ahead and remove your IDE1 and IDE2 connections to ensure it goes to the floppy. DO NOT put in your floppy yet as we need to put in the corrupted BIOS chip before the disk starts. If the disk is not in there it'll simply say INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND HIT ENTER TO RESTART. Getting to this screen is perfect as you don't want the system to try and boot from your HD into windows and you just need it to sit at a part where the system is accessible and the floppy will still be accessible.. At this point you need to have your bootable floppy with flash utility on it near by as you'll be using it within 5 minutes. Before you put the floppy in, first remove the good BIOS chip currently in the system. This is where it gets dangerous especially with a paperclip. Your system has to remain ON as the only reason it was able to POST is because it had the proper BIOS in it. After the computer has POSTed the BIOS information is basically no longer needed so it's safe to remove the BIOS chip even when your system is on.
So hopefully at this point your computer should be on and wanting a disk to boot from in the floppy. Remove the good BIOS chip and replace it with the Corrupted Chip. Now you may insert the floppy disk and flash it just like you would normally do a DOS based flash. If you have the autoexec file that came with the flash utility, then as soon as you stick in the floppy it'll start up and flash your corrupted BIOS with the files you select and are hopefully the right ones. Hopefully the flash is a success and then will now have 2 working BIOS Chips with the exact same information on it. So in the future if another bad flash occurs you can once again hot flash the chip to restore it or simply put in the spare BIOS chip until you have time to hot flash it.
Here's a link that provides some information based on if you have different boards and want to attempt hot flashing. However, this method may prove to be less successful
www.rojakpot.com
Alternatively, there is a tool that is mentioned on the above link called UniFlash that is supposed to be a universal flashing tool meant to be used across various motherboards. I've personally not used it, but when it comes to having a dead BIOS chip it's definitely something worth checking out. I in fact have a dead BIOS chip so I probably will try this myself and post any updates if possible.
To find a little more detailed information on hot flashing including pictures check out the link below:
www.rojakpot.com
I hope this information proved useful for some people and how did I come to gain the knowledge of this? By experience....it's purely from my own mistakes of flashing with incorrect BIOS's and trying 100 different ways to try and fix it. I've finally found a few methods which are the best chances of fixing an otherwise dead BIOS. Happy flashing and OC that baby!
-Nubius
