can i update my bios

[kkbbowen]

HELP!. IN OVER MY HEAD. I NEED A LIFE LINE.

I HAVE A:
180 MB RAM, 10 GIG HARDRIVE. WITH AN AMBIOS CYRIX III –600 MHZ AND AMI MOTHERBOARD (RELEASED IN 2000)# M741LMRT-H, MADE BY PC100( IT SAYS IN THE MANUAL)

I recently got it as a second hand computer. Absent mindedly I started it, the bios ran, then I realized I had not put in the hardrive. So I turned off the computer , opened the side casing and put in the hardrive. I think I did this correctly. I noticed however that one of the prongs on the external power cord..the “ground prong” was missing. This is relevant because although I quickly changed the cord , I need to know if the next error message would indicate whether or not I fried the motherboard or bios chip or whatever it is that gets fried.
I had put into the computer a 10 gig hardrive and an ADAPTI CD Rom.

The error message I got was: “MASTER HARD DRIVE STATUS OK. SECONDARY MASTER DRIVE ATAPI INCOMPATIBLE.PRESS F1 TO RESUME.

Pressing F1 didn t do anything.

Could his be caused by a static electricity problem? Consider this in the light of the next error messages..I am hoping the bios was not fried at this point.

I then safely removed the battery for a few minutes.The error message read the same, except for a battery low message.”

I used the jumper cables on the motherboard to clear the bios. The new message was: CMOS SETTING WRONG, CMOS CHECK SUM BAD , PRESS F1 TO RUN SETTINGS, PRESS F2 TO LOAD DEFAULT VALUES.” I GET A BEEP CODE, 2 QUICK BEEPS , A DOUBLE PAUSE, THEN ANOTHER BEEP.

I went to http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/sys/beep/ami.htm, and deciphered the beep codes.
“FOR THE 2 BEEPS” ..parity circuit failure,The parity circuit is responsible for generating and checking the parity bit on the system memory when parity checking is used. This circuitry is not working properly.
Diagnosis:: This code usually means a problem with either the system memory or the motherboard.
And for the one beep later..Recommedation: troubleshoot the motherboard. Treat as an apparent memory failure.
”FOR THE 1 BEEP” “DRAM refresh failure” Explanation: The system is having a problem accessing the system memory to refresh it. Refreshing is done on all system memory to keep its contents active.Diagnosis: This code usually means a problem either with the system memory or with the motherboard itself.Recommendation: Troubleshoot the motherboard. ,Treat as an apparent memory failure. .

I would like to update the bios. I was told there may be a small software program in the computer that will read the a drive when I put a utilitys bios update in the a drive. But I need to get some input at this point cause I think I am floundering.
Any advice would be appreciated.

Keith

[KachiWachi]

Duplicate, though more informative post??