Failed bios flash

  • Thread starter Thread starter Shiva
  • Start date Start date
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Shiva

Hi,

I've done a bios flash only once, and luckily, nothing went wrong. But
suppose something goes wrong, e.g. due to a power failure during the flash,
is there still a way to recover from the failure? What is it you have to do
in such a case other than buying a new motherboard? Is it possible to
replace (i.e. the hardware) a messed up bios?

Thanks in advance!
 
Shiva said:
Hi,

I've done a bios flash only once, and luckily, nothing went wrong. But
suppose something goes wrong, e.g. due to a power failure during the flash,
is there still a way to recover from the failure? What is it you have to do
in such a case other than buying a new motherboard? Is it possible to
replace (i.e. the hardware) a messed up bios?
Click to expand...

I think some boards can be flashed on boot -- sounds like a chicken/egg, catch
22 sort of thing, but I think I came across something like that. You'd have to
check your board documentation, or more likely email or call tech support for
the board. One would think that bios flash failure would have some sort of
fail safe, but...

Replacing the bios chip is another option.

There's also: http://www.recoverybios.com

They sell bios backup chips.

Bryan
 
Shiva said:
Hi,

I've done a bios flash only once, and luckily, nothing went
wrong. But suppose something goes wrong, e.g. due to a power
failure during the flash, is there still a way to recover from
the failure? What is it you have to do in such a case other than
buying a new motherboard? Is it possible to replace (i.e. the
hardware) a messed up bios?
Click to expand...

Further to the other replies, you can also hotswap a bios;
Borrow a known working cmos chip from an identical board and fit
it to yours, boot with the floppy that has the new bios image and
flashing utility, swap the chips over (very carefully - if you
short something and the board is toast), and flash as normal.
I've done it a few times, all successfully, but it is a bit scary
the first few times ;-)

As Bryan says, some if not most newer motherboards will still boot
to floppy after a bad flash and allow you to re-flash.

A general tip - always reset the cmos after you flash a new bios
image, and do it with all power disconnected from the system, then
load optimised defaults, lastly reboot again and setup anything
specific.

HTH
 
Apollo said:
Further to the other replies, you can also hotswap a bios;
Borrow a known working cmos chip from an identical board and fit
it to yours, boot with the floppy that has the new bios image and
flashing utility, swap the chips over (very carefully - if you
short something and the board is toast), and flash as normal.
I've done it a few times, all successfully, but it is a bit scary
the first few times ;-)

As Bryan says, some if not most newer motherboards will still boot
to floppy after a bad flash and allow you to re-flash.
Click to expand...

Some newer mobos even support recovery from the CD drive.
http://www.asus.com/products/mb/crashfreebios2.htm
 
I've done a bios flash only once, and luckily, nothing went wrong. But
suppose something goes wrong, e.g. due to a power failure during the flash,
is there still a way to recover from the failure? What is it you have to do
in such a case other than buying a new motherboard? Is it possible to
replace (i.e. the hardware) a messed up bios?
Click to expand...

Depends on your mother board. My Asus board can recover from a bad
flash. Or so the booklet that came with it says -- I don't ever
want to test it out.
 
Thanks a lot for all replies. The motherboard I flashed was an P6SET-ML
containing a Intel Celeron 600 Mhz processor. Quite an old one imo. Some of
you said some motherboards can recover from a bad bios flash. It is
something I will definitely bear in mind when purchasing a new motherboard!
 
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