If using Uniflash to flash a mainboard's Bios you might get a "Bootblock Mismatch" error message with the option to continue flashing or not
Do not continue flashing !! > It may render your Bios useless or (with luck)the board starts with emergency Bios (Bootblock Bios)
Make sure you have the correct Bios !
If you get this "Bootblock Mismatch" error message do not continue flashing - go to Uniflash Advanced menu and use the option Flash including bootblock - if the message comes again press Y and continue ( Bootblock and main Bios are updated)
Last edited by Denniss on Fri Jul 18, 2003 7:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Very true. I always ended up with a dead board when I got that warning and proceeded anyhow. I believe Rainbow mentioned he was going to do something about this issue.
v1.30 will include another question if there's mismatch - if you answer Y that you want to flash, it will ask you if you want to flash including bootblock, Y is recommended.
v1.3 will also show the progress bar in green or red. Green when block was flashed OK, red when there was an error (such as timeout).
You may move this to it's own thread if appropriate...
Suppose you get this error, flash the bootblock, but in reality you've chosen the wrong file to flash to begin with. I would guess not all bootblocks are the same. Wouldn't that still render your board useless??
Very true, and I have learned from this experience.
And to make sure that I'm flashing the correct BIOS file or correct BIOS update, I first save the existing ROM binary file, then compare it with the new file to be flashed based on the following parameters:
1. BIOS ID String (without the release date),
2. Chipset Register Defaults,
3. IRQ Routing Table,
4. ACPI Table
These parameters don't change as new BIOS updates are being released by the manufacturer for the same board.
Wouldn't it be great if Rainbow could include this "auto-compare feature" in future versions of Uniflash?
Functionality like "auto-compare" will NOT be implemented. UniFlash should be universal - it does not check what's inside the file you are flashing - it only checks the size, which must always be equal to the size of the chip.
BTW.: Starting with v1.33, flashing is done including bootblock by default.