Tried to fit a new drive.. bios rom checksum error?

Scam

Scam

Scam

Soldato
Joined
20 Oct 2002
Posts
18,989
Location
London
Hoping someone could help here.

I recently acquired a spare 500gb ide drive which I thought would make a good back up drive. I have 2 smaller drives at the moment - both ide, one with windows on obviously. I set the jumpers on the new drive to slave, plugged it up and now my PC won't boot. I get the following message:

BIOS ROM checksum error
Detecting floppy drive A media..
Drive A error. System Halt..

I can't get past that message. I can't get into the BIOS to change the boot order or anything. I've tried a new CMOS battery, and I've tried resetting the CMOS via the mobo jumpers. I really hope I haven't blown the mobo somehow?

I guess I should be looking into getting a boot disk on a floppy? That will have to wait until I go to work tonight so I can make/steal one! Anything else I could try in the meantime?

Oh the mobo is an Abit AS8 if that helps. Yes, this is an old system!
 
Last edited:
Let me understand..

you said you already have 2 other drives.. are they on the same cable?
Is this new drive on another cable or on the same cable with another drive? some drives have a setting for master only OR master with slave, also cable select.

Do you see all the drives inside your Bios?
 
Hi. That message comes up before I can get into the BIOS, so I can't see or do anything!

Cable setup is as follows (master/slave):

DVD ROM - M
New HDD - S (was CDROM which I have unplugged as I do not use it)

Floppy - M (I presume, its on its own cable)

HDD 1 - M
HDD 2 - S

Everything was working fine before, I thought it would be straight forward to swap a slave CDROM for a slave HDD! :(
 
To be honest from the message it sounds like the BIOS has become corrupted?

It sounds like it might be looking for a BIOS .rom file from the floppy drive to fix itself.
 
Scam said:
Hi. That message comes up before I can get into the BIOS, so I can't see or do anything!

Cable setup is as follows (master/slave):

DVD ROM - M
New HDD - S (was CDROM which I have unplugged as I do not use it)

Floppy - M (I presume, its on its own cable)

HDD 1 - M
HDD 2 - S

Everything was working fine before, I thought it would be straight forward to swap a slave CDROM for a slave HDD! :(
Click to expand...

If you remove the new HDD, does it work?
 
You have some options

remove all drivers and see if the computer looks for a boot device... if not probably your bios is corrupted (is the jumper on the right place?)
If your bios is corrupted, you need to download the bios, copy it to floppy and probably your MB will look for it, sometimes you need to rename the file.

maybe that is why you are getting this msg:
BIOS ROM checksum error
Detecting floppy drive A media..
Drive A error. System Halt..

some old MBs can use a floppy as a bios recovery, some new MBs have dual bios or it will look on USB ports.
 
Hello. Finally had a chance to think about fixing this now! I'm going to look into flashing a new BIOS, I presume I can download the appropriate one from the mobo manufacturer's site? I'm looking now... the mobo is an Abit AS8.

I tried swapping the BIOS jumper to the 'reset' option (or words ot that effect) but still nothing :(

Can I make a generic floppy boot disk? I've been searching online but keep getting sent to tutorials on how to install Windows XP from a boot/floppy disk which I don't think I want to do!

Thanks in advance.
 
Super bump!

This problem managed to rectify itself before.. Well I don't know if it was me swapping drive cables around etc or what. Its been working well enough until I went to use it last night and got the BIOS ROM checksum error. I've tried clearing the CMOS again, tried a new battery, can't fix it :(

Perhaps I should re flash the BIOS? How would I go about that? A quick Google seems to show instructions via Windows, which obviously I can't get into!

Thanks.
 
Ignore, i see, i'll look.

Seems you can get replacement BIOS chip from eBay for £8 if all else fails.
 
Last edited:
I'm wondering if it may be a stick of memory gone. When it boots it only counts up to 128mb before it gives the error..?
 
There comes a point in time where you need to put your hand in your pocket and spend money on an upgrade.

Now is that time...IDE?!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom