Flashing the BIOS, any way possible!

RChadwick

Here's my story. I came across a nice point of sale computer/monitor/touchscreen. I decided to look for a BIOS update before installing Windows, and found one. Motherboard is a Jetway (I think) 626EMP800. BIOS is Award Phoenix. I flashed the update, with no problems, but it turned out to be 2 years older, and can't boot from USB, and other needed features. UGH! I knew I should have left well enough alone. Anyway, I made a backup before flashing, two backups actually. Here's the start of problems. One backup is 256KB, and one is 384KB. AWDFLASH says the 384KB one is too big for the motherboard. It accepts the 256KB fle, but it doesn't recognize the flash chip! Best I can tell, it was somehow write protected, but I went through the BIOS, and there was no option (The manual says there is, but my version didn't have it), and no jumpers on the MB for this. Uniflash pretty much did the same thing, even when forcing it to the right chip. So, I booted to a BartPE disk, and ran Winflash. This seemed to recognize the flash chip properly, but EVERY BIOS file I had, it either said it was too big, or 'Wasn't the right BIOS file' (Don't remember the exact wording). Even if I made a backup of the BIOS in Winflash, and then tried to restore that image, it gave the same error. I found a slightly newer Winflash (1.77 I think, I think I was using 1.71, all this from memory), with the exact same results.

Swapping the chip while powered scares me (Lots of bad luck already on this!), so I think the next thing to do is flash the chip with my Superpro EEPROM programmer. The right PLCC adapter is on it's way.

The BIOS files I have are all *.BIN. Are these in some industry standard format? Do I need to convert them before burning them directly to a flash chip?

If it's important, the flash chip is EN29F002ANT-70JC

Thanks for any help you can offer!

RChadwick · Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 3:08 am Post subject:

Well, nobody responded, so I figured I'd help out others looking for the same info. I was a little worried, as I read the chip, then compared the file I flashed to it, and it was a bit different. However, I just flashed the copy of the original BIOS as-is, popped the chip in, and it worked fine. I was expecting a huge fight, but it just works. Smile