This message greeted me as I started a new computer and pressed the Del. Key
to bring up the BIOS. Please Help.

I have done many computers off of ASUS motherboards. Never have I run into
this issue

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Michael Hobbs
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Michael Hobbs wrote:

> This message greeted me as I started a new computer and pressed the Del. Key
> to bring up the BIOS. Please Help.
>
> I have done many computers off of ASUS motherboards. Never have I run into
> this issue
>

Certainly very unexpected for a factory-fresh motherboard,
direct from Asus, but quite possible for a motherboard that
had been returned to the vendor with the bios cleared. Re-
check the cmos jumper settings and re-flash bios. Also check
for condition of CMOS battery. If this action fails, then bios
chip needs replacement.

In article <6hace.474$(E-Mail Removed)>, "Michael Hobbs"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> This message greeted me as I started a new computer and pressed the Del. Key
> to bring up the BIOS. Please Help.
>
> I have done many computers off of ASUS motherboards. Never have I run into
> this issue

The message:

"No drive attached to FastTrak controller, The BIOS is not installed"

is part of the Promise 20378 RAID BIOS, and means that no drives
are connected to the 20378, therefore the RAID BIOS is being
unloaded.

There is another module in the BIOS, something to do with SATA378,
which says "BIOS is not installed". Perhaps the modules handle
running the 20378 in RAID and IDE mode respectively. (This info
was extracted with AMIBCP75 - a tool which apparently does not
extract everything inside the BIOS, as I don't see the copy
of EZFlash in there that I was expecting.)

The BIOS is supposed to consist of the Boot Block code and the main BIOS
code. The Boot Block is not supposed to have enough smarts to be
able to initialize an AGP card (thus, if using Boot Block recovery,
you cannot see the progress on the screen).

If the main BIOS code is corrupted, the Boot Block code does a
checksum of the main BIOS code, before jumping to the main BIOS.
You would get a BIOS corruption error message if there was a problem
from that perspecive.

It sounds like you have entered the main BIOS, and for some reason
are getting hung up in some code that talks to the 20378.
(Plugging amplified speakers into the Lineout audio connector,
might allow you to hear any voice error messages coming from
the Vocal POST.)

Perhaps you could read up on EZflash in the manual. You are
supposed to be able to press <alt> F2, and that should prompt
you with the "User recovery requested" message. Make sure the
floppy or CD with the P4C800ED.ROM file is loaded into the
drive, so there won't be any foulups. I've heard that
EZFlash isn't bulletproof, and after it is finished, you
might not be able to boot the board, but at this point
I expect you would not be much worse off than where you
are currently. And, since you are not getting a message
about the BIOS being corrupted, it could mean that the
processor, memory, and other components are stable
enough to take a chance on flashing the BIOS.

HTH,
Paul

If it's a new computer and the Bios is missing, you'll have to return the
board for a Warranty Replacement of it.

--
DaveW



"Michael Hobbs" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:6hace.474$(E-Mail Removed)...
> This message greeted me as I started a new computer and pressed the Del.
> Key to bring up the BIOS. Please Help.
>
> I have done many computers off of ASUS motherboards. Never have I run into
> this issue
>
> --
> (E-Mail Removed)
> Remove X's to reply
> Michael Hobbs
> Minneapolis, Minnesota
>
>