I may have been very silly

philhoole

philhoole

philhoole

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I just flashed the BIOS on a ASRock 4CoreDualSata and now the thing won't boot at all. Doesn't even POST. Everything powers up but that's it.

I downloaded a BIOS that gave the impression that it would restore the Speedstep features that seem to be missing from the BIOS that ships.

Is there any way I can restore this? Luckily it only cost about £40 if I have trashed it but I'm a bit annoyed (mostly with myself) right now.
 
Is it an AMI or AWARD bios?

You should do a search for failed BIOS flash recovery and you'll probably need a floppy drive and floppy disk to do it.
 
Well, I thought I had a genuine BIOS file but it wasn't from ASRock directly so that could be the source of my problem.

Tried clearing CMOS without any change.

I'm not sure the system will even boot from a floppy even if I had the right files. Apart from fans and disks spinning up there is no sign of life at all - Monitor is blank :(
 
I searched for your mobo and it's using an AMI bios. A bios flash usually leaves the boot block intact which contains the bios recovery from floppy disk code. Have you got a speaker attached so that you can find out what beep codes it's doing? For a failed AMI bios flash it should beep 8 times when it's attempts to boot or if you have a floppy drive connected it should try to access it.

Here's the info on AMI bios recovery:

AMI has an embedded recovery technique in the 'boot block' of the BIOS. In the event that the BIOS becomes corrupt the boot block can be used to restore the BIOS to a working state. The routine is called when the 'system block' of the BIOS is empty or corrupt. The restore routine when called will access the floppy drive (1.44Mb floppy disk drive) looking for a file named AMIBOOT.ROM.

This is the reason the floppy drive light comes on and the drive appears to be in use. If the file (AMIBOOT.ROM) is found it is loaded into the 'system block' of the BIOS to replace the corrupted information.

To restore your BIOS copy the most recent version of your motherboards BIOS file to a floppy diskette and rename it AMIBOOT.ROM. The diskette does not need to be bootable or contain a flash utility. It will access the floppy from 2-5 minutes the system will beep four times. Remove the floppy diskette from the drive and reboot the computer. if when you turn on the system it does not try to access the floppy, press and hold the 'CTRL' and 'HOME' keys at the same time. This will force the system (assuming the 'boot block' isn't corrupted) to access the flopy and look for the AMIBOOT.ROM file.

Step by Step:

1. Rename the desired AMI BIOS file to AMIBOOT.ROM and save it on a blank floppy disk. e.g. Rename 12345678.ROM to AMIBOOT.ROM

2. Insert this floppy disk in the floppy drive. Turn On the system

3. If no floppy access occurs press and hold Ctrl-Home to force update. Follow insructions on the screen and it will read the AMIBOOT.ROM file and recover the BIOS from the A drive.

4. When 4 beeps are heard you may remove the floppy disk.

5. Restart the computer.
Click to expand...
 
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Thanks for the suggestions but no luck I'm afraid.

There are no beeps at all and I can't get the system to access the floppy.

I think it may be trashed which is impressive because it was only delivered on Saturday!
 
I'm not sure on this, but would it be possible to hot-swap the BIOS? i.e. boot up with someone else's BIOS then put yours in while the system is running and flash it?
 
I read a little about hot flashing but think I need a similar motherboard but I don't know anyone who has one unfortunately.

I am on a bit of a roll as I have managed to delete about 100GB of files for which I had no backup:eek:

Think I'll turn the PCs off and go and so something else for a while before I do something else stupid.
 
Good idea :p

But seriously - buy another 4Core board from OvUK do the hot swap then send it back under the distance selling act. This way it'll cost you postage to and from (roughly £13 I reckon if bought from here) to get your PC back to working order (if the hot-swap works of course!)
 
You could ask in the wanted forum for someone who has the same board and will let you send them your bios chip and do the hot flash for you. I did it a few times for people on here back in the Abit NF7-S days where bios corruption was very common.
 
You can hot swap with any pin compatable board, even with radically differing chipsets. Done it several times.

You have your ASROCK, and the bin file.
Your second mobo is X. And you have the X specific flasher.

Boot the X mobo with the X Bios Chip in place. Boot to DOS.
Remove the X Bios chip carefully. Insert the ASROCK bios chip.
Flash with the X Bios utility *NOT* the ASROCK flasher.
Re-swap chips. Et voila!

I did this easily between an ALi and an Intel board a few times.
 
youve probably defiently tried this but have you done the obvious thing of reseting the bios by removing the battery/jumper whatever

im sure my asrock dualsata did something similar when i flashed it and i jus tneed to reset it :o
 
Something else to try - take out your memory sticks except the one in DIMM1 and see if it'll boot.

I just removed my motherboard etc and refitted the heatsink and when I refitted the motherboard etc and tried to boot it up the fans switched on etc but no boot or beeps. I was at a loss so did the above leaving only one stick in DIMM1 and it booted fine. The CMOS had reset (something musta shorted I guess) so I set it back to correct settings, saved and booted fine. Put the other 3 memory sticks back in and it booted fine.
 
Thanks for all your suggestions. I'll certainly try the single stick of DDR before anything else.

As for hotswapping , I do have another motherboard with an AMIBIOS and the IC's do appear to be the same physical package although I don't know if they have the same pinout. The BIOS chips are by different manufacturers but I could hopefully read the part code and find their data sheets.

I don't really like the idea of pulling a chip out while it's running but I guess if it does the trick then it's worth a go. Just don't want to destroy the working one ! I should have one of those tools for pulling out the BIOS PLCC package from it's socket at work.
 
artaxerxes said:
You can hot swap with any pin compatable board, even with radically differing chipsets. Done it several times.

You have your ASROCK, and the bin file.
Your second mobo is X. And you have the X specific flasher.

Boot the X mobo with the X Bios Chip in place. Boot to DOS.
Remove the X Bios chip carefully. Insert the ASROCK bios chip.
Flash with the X Bios utility *NOT* the ASROCK flasher.
Re-swap chips. Et voila!

I did this easily between an ALi and an Intel board a few times.
Click to expand...

When I have done that I have first, without any power to it, removed the BIOS chip from motherboard X and 'looped' a length of fishing line (non conductive) under the chip and then popped it back in approximately 75% of the way. That way all the legs of the chip are making contact but it made it easier for me to remove it when powered on.
The last board that I did this to was my DFI nforce 4 Ultra board - I am using it now whilst I'm typing this :)
 
Cairnsey said:
Good idea :p

But seriously - buy another 4Core board from OvUK do the hot swap then send it back under the distance selling act. This way it'll cost you postage to and from (roughly £13 I reckon if bought from here) to get your PC back to working order (if the hot-swap works of course!)
Click to expand...

Thats highly unethical, the 'Spirit' of the distance selling act, is to allow people the opportunity to return an item, which they have decided doesnt do what they wanted. Like return a pair of shoes because they are uncomfortable, or perhaps a TV which when setup looked rediculously large, or small etc.

However taking chips off a motherboard, (and without a chip puller its very easy to crack the sockets that bios chips sit in), and then returning it... Thats highly dodgey. And the returned board can likely only be sold on as 'b' grade after its been returned, so its eating into the sellers margins.

The distance selling laws are overall a good thing, but people who 'abuse' them to try and get perfect TFT's at standard prices, or suggestions like this.... Well, I cant think of anything more likely to get online retailers to petition for changes to the law.
 
I decided to give hot flashing a go but no luck.

I am following artaxerxes instructions but when I run the flash utility I get an error message saying that this BIOS file is not for this system.

I tried simply renaming the BIOS file but it isn't going to be tricked that easily.

I suspect the problem is that the BIOS file sizes are different. The 4Core board has a 4Mbit BIOS chip but the board I'm trying to flash it in only has a 2Mbit BIOS. Just a guess.

Tried a couple of flash utilities. Firstly the one for the board in question and also AFUDOS but I can't get it to program.

Fitting just a single stick of RAM didn't help I'm afraid.

I wouldn't contemplate orering another board I had no intention of keeping - That is a bit dishonest.
 
Yeah nice tip, pre loosen the BIOS, it becomes obvious when you are doing it!

OP

Have a look at wim's bios pages.. they saved my life and gave me the above guide. There will be a way, a switch, to force a flash, and since the BIOS is already knackered...

http://www.wimsbios.com/index.jsp

of interest

http://www.wimsbios.com/faq.jsp#q9

Did you try contacting Asrock?

and there new (but still good forums)

http://www.wimsbios.com/phpBB2/

I have a ASROCK 4CORE VSTA, so if push comes to shove I could flash for it you... if it breaks it gives me an excuse to upgrade. I got this board for the DDR and AGP compatabiliy and I have now incrementally reached DDR II and PCI-E, so an X38 might be around the corner...

\edit to add

Which BIOS flasher did you use, and I'll see what switches you need to force the write without warnings.
Tell us the second board model.
 
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