Backup BIOS with phlash.exe

Discusses BIOS flashers and utilities from Award, AMI and Uniflash
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bence8810
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Dear Forum,

This is my first post, I had a very bad deal with a Picturebook's BIOS. I flashed it, and now it is trash. I sent it to the US, where a person will try to repair my BIOS, as Sony doesnt provide the Full flash for the BIOS, only an upgrade for it. My BIOS chip is a 2MB Fujitsu, and the BIOS they supply online is only 568KB.

I located a fellow VAIO fan in Japan who has the same model, with a working BIOS, and I asked him to do this Backup for me, and he is willing. I really appreciate his time, so I dont want to waste it.

Can you tell me how he can Backup the BIOS image so that I can use that for my machine?

He has XP on his machine, I suspect NTFS. That is bad? He already booted once with a Floppy, and ran

A:\phlash /R0=C:savedbios.rom

This flashed his cursor for a while, and did nothing. He waited for 5 mintues, then gave up, rebooted to XP, and the file was nowhere to be found. He created the boot floppy with WinME. I suspect the NTFS be an error, or that WinME has a memory manager running on the boot floppy. However I am not sure, and I dont want to waste his time.

Please help me if you have any ideas,

Thank you

Benedek
KURIAKI
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Location: Cancun, Mexico

bence8810 wrote:He already booted once with a Floppy, and ran

A:\phlash /R0=C:savedbios.rom

Benedek
Try:
A:\phlash /RO oldbios.rom

Or:

A:\phlash /BU
More than 100,000 BIOS strings in my database just now!
http:/ /www.kuriaki.has.it/
http:/ /www.supportbios.info
------------------------------------------
Saludos desde Cancun, Mexico
KURIAKI
bence8810
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Hi

Yes, that would have worked, but the BIOS file is exactly 2MB, and that will not fit on a floppy.

What could the problem have been? He said, the Cursor was just blinking, and no progress shown.

Thanks

Ben
KURIAKI
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Joined: Thu Nov 18, 2004 9:37 pm
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Use a Win 98 bootdisk with these files only:
IO.SYS
MSDOS.SYS
CONFIG.SYS
COMMAND.COM
AUTOEXEC.BAT
phlash.exe
There are enough space to backup your BIOS.
More than 100,000 BIOS strings in my database just now!
http:/ /www.kuriaki.has.it/
http:/ /www.supportbios.info
------------------------------------------
Saludos desde Cancun, Mexico
KURIAKI
bence8810
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Joined: Wed Oct 05, 2005 5:38 pm

Hi

If you say so, than I guess I have a problem. I need o get 2MB from my Chip. If you say, that I can back up full of my BIOS onto a flopy, then it isnt getting everything out of the CHIP. How can I get all information from my chip? People say, that this chip contains information about Model specific info, and may even have some Crusoe Code Morphing information. Is there a way to get all that info via Software method? Or I can only get the Bios.rom, which is the same as on Sony's website? That file is 568KB, so I thought that might only be an upgrade to the BIOS that is already in the CHIP. I thought there is a way to save all info from the CHIP. Please explain, I dont really understand how this whole thig is set up, etc.

How about Uniflash? Can I use that software to access BIOS?

Here is just for your information, the link to the BIOS file from Sony, but as I said, it is only 568KB.

http://vcl.vaio.sony.co.jp/products/win ... pcg_c1vrxk

The top File is what I need, and the second down is the original.

Thanks

Ben
KURIAKI
Moderator
Posts: 1037
Joined: Thu Nov 18, 2004 9:37 pm
Location: Cancun, Mexico

bence8810 wrote:If you say so, than I guess I have a problem. I need o get 2MB from my Chip. If you say, that I can back up full of my BIOS onto a flopy, then it isnt getting everything out of the CHIP.
Your BIOS has 568 KB (581,632 bytes) only.
More than 100,000 BIOS strings in my database just now!
http:/ /www.kuriaki.has.it/
http:/ /www.supportbios.info
------------------------------------------
Saludos desde Cancun, Mexico
KURIAKI
bence8810
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Joined: Wed Oct 05, 2005 5:38 pm

Hi

Thanks for the Reply. In that case, how do I repair my BIOS Chip? I desoldered it with a technicial, burned the BIOS image into the CHIP with the EEPROM. This was the 568KB file. But the technician said, the CHIP is 3/4 empty, because it is a 2MB chip. At this stage, we resoldered the Chip to the motherboard, and of course, it didnt boot. He said, we need the full 2MB, which includes the Model Info, etc. How can I get that? I have a friend with the same laptop in Japan, and he said he will help me, just I need to tell him a safe way to get the info out from his chip. Is there a way?

Thanks

Ben
apple_rom
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You have 4Mbit (512kByte) bios/flash. For Phoenix 0-7FFFF of "bios.rom" file is a bios image. Cut this block to other file and flash it to EEPROM.
Last edited by apple_rom on Tue Oct 11, 2005 7:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
bence8810
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Dear Apple_rom

Thank you for your reply. In the meantime, I found one Japanese person who could carry out a BIOS save to Floppy, but that file was even smaller, 168KB. So now all I have is the file from Sony's website, 568KB.

The chip is 16Mbit, 2MB. How can I fill up the chip with 568KB? What do you mean, cut this block to another file? What I have is the save of my Chip via EEPROM reader, which is 2MB, and I have a correct 568KB file from Sony. The 2MB image is useless, as that is the one I screwed up.

Should someone probably try to match the 2MB file which is bad with the 568KB which is good, and make a good 2MB file from it?

Thanks

Ben
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