I was contemplating a bios upgrade on an old pc and downloaded an award bios flasher to look at any help files that came with it
I felt that it looked a bit of a risky business so decided not to proceed.
When i turned my machine off and tried to re-start it became apparent that i must have run part of the program and my machine would not boot.
I found the reccomended bios updates for my machine and the flasher:A15tv9.bin & AWD802a.exe and followed the instructions for upgrading blindfold but after a couple of failed attempts i found an old ISA video card and got my screen back.
Booted ok off sys disk and ran AWD802a.exe which took me to the point where i entered A15tv9.bin as file name to program. Error message said:
'System was not new Award Bios version!
Please update ROM BIOS first'
System returned to A: prompt
saw some talk of this situation on bulletin boards which appeared unresolved.
Tried same operation using Awdflash.exe instead with same result so decided to download 'fixed' Award flasher from http://www.aha.ru/~hawk/default.htm?id/ ... n/hardware Tried the same routine again but this time floppy was not looked for and screen shows message
'Award Bootblock bios ver 1.0
Copyright 1995 Award software,
Cursor blinks under this.
I seem very slowly and carefully to be moving backwards on this.
Any advice for my next move, i have not flashed cmos yet.
Thanks for all the advice found that has got me this far i really thought for a moment that i was just moments from being fixed.
Sorry if i have posted this twice but i dont think i have
Inadvertently scrambled bios
If you've got to the stage where it's not looking at the floppy, I think you need to do the "hot swap" flash. See Rainbow's advice at http://www.pppr.sk/rainbow/hardware/hotflash.html
Tested patched BIOSes. Untested patched BIOSes.
Emails *will* be ignored unless the subject line starts "Wim's BIOS forum"
Emails *will* be ignored unless the subject line starts "Wim's BIOS forum"
Thanks for prompt reply, none of the other pcs available to me has 32 pin bios so i am not able to try the hot-flash. Bit dissapointing as I have been doing self-confidence exercises and felt plucky enough to try this. Can buy (I believe) a replacement Bios from Biosworld for about $30. Haven't noticed any other suppliers. Does anybody have good/bad experiences with any suppliers? Surprised that nobody seems to offer hotflash as a service, is this a business opportunity? Thanks again
I've read a couple of posts in the past few months where people have taken their chip and BIOS to "an electronics shop" or similar and had it programmed. So yes, it could be a business opportunity. Someone posted a while back asking about ROM types because he wanted to set up a BIOS-by-post service himself.
Can you find an old motherboard for under $30 which you could hook up to do the hot swap ? I certainly couldn't get 5 pounds UK ($7.75 US) for this one under my desk, even with a P90 in it. At least, no-one bid.
Can you find an old motherboard for under $30 which you could hook up to do the hot swap ? I certainly couldn't get 5 pounds UK ($7.75 US) for this one under my desk, even with a P90 in it. At least, no-one bid.
Tested patched BIOSes. Untested patched BIOSes.
Emails *will* be ignored unless the subject line starts "Wim's BIOS forum"
Emails *will* be ignored unless the subject line starts "Wim's BIOS forum"
Got hold of suitable old mobo so tried hot-flash
Awdflash and Awd8o2a both give me message that existing bios is 'not new award bios'
Is this because i have messed up the boot-block?
Tried the 'fixed' download from http://www.aha.ru/~hawk/default.htm?id/ ... n/hardware but this looks at floppy for however long you leave it but goes nowhere.perhaps the same reason
Now trying to make progress with Uniflash. Says Pci bus not detected so tried: uniflash/force.
Requires 4 digit no.
Id on my bios chip is: PH29EE010
150-3CF
962206-D
The only ref. that i found on chiplist that resembles this gives me an id of: BF07
Tried : uniflash/force BF07 and get repeat of pci bus not detected.
Where am i being stupid and have i come to the right conclusion about the id no.?
Thanks
Awdflash and Awd8o2a both give me message that existing bios is 'not new award bios'
Is this because i have messed up the boot-block?
Tried the 'fixed' download from http://www.aha.ru/~hawk/default.htm?id/ ... n/hardware but this looks at floppy for however long you leave it but goes nowhere.perhaps the same reason
Now trying to make progress with Uniflash. Says Pci bus not detected so tried: uniflash/force.
Requires 4 digit no.
Id on my bios chip is: PH29EE010
150-3CF
962206-D
The only ref. that i found on chiplist that resembles this gives me an id of: BF07
Tried : uniflash/force BF07 and get repeat of pci bus not detected.
Where am i being stupid and have i come to the right conclusion about the id no.?
Thanks
What board are you using for hotflash? UniFlash requires chipset with PCI bus support. Boards without PCI slots usually don't support flashing.
Patched and tested BIOSes are at http://wims.rainbow-software.org
UniFlash - Flash anything anywhere
UniFlash - Flash anything anywhere
Big thanks to this site for all the tips and help. Eventually a search on ebay led me to a chap named Oliver Baker and within 4 days pc all better again for about £10. New bios chip with latest bios already flashed. I presume he would also re-program an existing chip if this was required. I do not think that i could have successfully diagnosed my problem and ordered the replacement without 'Wimsguidance' so many thanks.
Dave
Dave
