BootBlock BIOS - How to Get Round?

[WheezCubeRetina]

I've posted this again as some wierness happened with text:

PROBLEM:
I recently flashed my Award BIOS and something seems to have gone very, very wrong.
I have BootBlock BIOS on boot-up and can’t get into CMOS set-up.

Although there did not seem to be a problem with the flash I now get a BIOS Checksum error and BootBlock BIOS message and cant RE-FLASH. I used the correct BIOS update and at first everything seemed fine – but I think I may have inadvertently set Flash BIOS Protection in CMOS setup to ENABLED - the next time I boot I get BootBlock BIOS.

Now I cant get Flash to work because I must heve Flash BIOS Protection enabled……(according to UniFlash.exe) and I cant get into CMOS setup in order to
Flash BIOS Protection due to BootBlock BIOS on boot-up.

When I try to reflash BIOS (using Award Flasher) the BIOS flash starts and at 0% I get the message: Program chip fail! When I try to flash using UniFlash I get message saying Flash BIOS Protection is not set to disabled.

QUESTION:
Is there any OTHER way to Disable Flash BIOS Protection if you can’t get into CMOS setup?

What will happen if I clear CMOS settings using UniFlasher? Would this return Flash BIOS Protection to default setting of disabled?

Any help will be very much appreciated,

[WheezCubeRetina]

Why are those numbers appearing in the middle of words like

can't
won't
musn't

???

[Rainbow]

Why are those numbers appearing in the middle of words

What browser do you use? I't w'o'r'k's O'K f'o'r m'e (MSIE6).

You can't enter SETUP because you do not have it now - it was badly flashed. It's impossible to flash with enabled protection - so cause of the failure is something other.

What board do you have? What chipset and what Flash ROM type?

[WheezCubeRetina]

Thanks for replying,

>>>You can't enter SETUP because you do not have it now - it was badly flashed. It's impossible to flash with enabled protection - so cause of the failure is something other.

I don't understand. If I don't have SETUP anymore how can flash protection be enabled as it is all part of the CMOS setup?

So is there any way to get the default setup back?
How should I progress?

>>>>>What board do you have? What chipset and what Flash ROM type?

Matsonic MS7070s. BX440. Winbond W29C020-90.

[Rainbow]

The protection should be disabled at power up and the BIOS enables it according to settings saved in CMOS. Because the BIOS does not work now, it does not enable the protection so flashing should work. You can try to clear CMOS (see manual).
There are two BIOSes for MS7070S - 1mbit and 2mbit. Winbond W29C020 is 2mbit chip - have you flashed this one?
Try different version of awdflash (older) or AMIFlash.

[WheezCubeRetina]

Thanks for explaining that, Rainbow.

I used the 2MB BIOS (991217.bin). For some reason UniFlash tells me that BIOS flash protection is enabled and all of the other flash programs I've tried seem to start the flash and then stop almost immediately. Even when I try to flash the original BIOS .bin thhat I saved.

I will clear the CMOS as you suggest and then try to reflash using awdflash.exe or UniFlash if that doesn't work.

I'll let you know how I get on.

BTW Is it possible that a DMI utility can cause problems with a BIOS? This situation I have now started directly after I rebooted after using the DMI utility that came on the board's CDROM. I understand that it writes info to the CMOS chip itself. Could something have gone wrong at that stage?

[Rainbow]

The DMI utility is probably the problem - bad DMI utility can result in damaged BIOS (DMI is stored in Flash ROM).