What would happen if a BIOS flash crashed?

keogh

keogh

keogh

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Howdy,

What would happen if you where flashing your BIOS to its latest version in windows using whatever tool, and it crashed half way thru, or didn't finish for some reason? Wouldn't you then have a corrupt/uncomplete BIOS and be unable to boot? And worse, as you will not be able to boot, you will ne be able to get into Windows to try again? Is there any backup on the mobo? Or does a flash install the new BIOS but keep the old one there whilst its doing it in case it has to revert back, only on success does it remove the old?

I have flashed my BIOS several times, but it scares the hell out of me each time worrying if this happended?

I've wondered about this for a while, and hope anf prey I don't ever get first hand experience at this happening, but I'd like to know what would happen if this happened... and I'm sure some unlukcy person has had it happen to them?

Anyone have any ideas?
 
Hi,

Always best to flash from a floppy disk.

However if you have a bad flash the board will be unbootable, the BIOS allows it to recognise the HDD, CD, GPU Memory etc and start to boot without it you just have a box of parts.

With some mobos the have a recovery process whereby the it will read a new file from a floppy if the BIOS is corrupt. My s939 MSi did this.

Some boards have a removable chip so you can get a replacement for around £15

Others like your P5N-E have neither. Mine had to be RMA's so I bought an ABIT instead.

Only update the BIOS if you really need to, eg. to support a new CPU or fix a major bug.

AD
 
Scary though isnt it... Ive never had probs with the ASUS util in windows, but it only takes a dodgy windows crash and that specific time (sods law would permit that) and you are screwed!

But what if you done it via windows, and only the flash util crashed for example, but windows was still running... I assume Windows wont die will it? You could reboot the util and try again until it works? I mean when in windows does windows still use the BIOS?
 
BIOS updating in Windows is too much of a risk for me (just fooked my new Blitz board that way :() so rely on USB/Floppy/CD/DOS methods is my advice :)
 
Nforce 2 boards had a habit of not booting after a flash, or in some instances just messing around in the BIOS.
Simple solution for that was one of these.

The problem is...they don't fit on new ASUS motherboards as they have decided to solder the BIOS chip on.
I feel the likes of ASUS who are generally on the dear side could build something like the above into the board for a few quid and we would all love them for it.
The new Blitz board (and maybe others) can't be done with a floppy as the BIOS file is too big.
Example...Blitz-ASUS-Formula-1101.ROM - 2.00 MB (2,097,152 bytes)

So it's either USB or CD.

Having read a few posts on here, it also maybe worth checking it sees your USB stick as well, as some people are having problems with some USB drives.

Maybe all the boards that are being returned are costing ASUS money and the may have a re-think.
I doubt it somehow though.

To answer your question though...look at what the BIOS does here.
It's possible to remove the BIOS chip of a running PC. The data on the chip is used to tell it what to do when you hit the on button.
It's nothing to do with windows.
What seems to have happened here IMO is people have become confident flashing in windows, it just seems the new ASUS boards and the flash tool that ASUS make are prone to failure.
 
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BEFORE you try flashing with a floppy, if you haven't used the drive for a long time, test that there's no problems by copying files back and forth in windows and checking for coruption, also do chkdsk on the floppy and a full format.
 
IIRC the problems with nForce2 boards were something to do with them flashing the BIOS via the northbridge. If your system was a bit unstable then it could just write junk to the BIOS. It could even happen if you just changed your BIOS settings.

BIOSes tend to have a 'boot block' as well as a main block. This is flashed prior to the mian block. If the main block is corrupted but the boot block is OK then the boot block will start the system from a floppy to reflash the BIOS.
 
Just one thing on flashing with a floppy, even if you copy the bios file okay to the disk it might have issues reading and writing if the disk it old. I find that disks that have had a lot of use and never properly formatted cause problem, so format your floppy disk you using with a long format and not just a quick format to avoid any issues. And I always as most people flash from a floppy instead of in Windows.

Don't some boards though come with dual bioses so if one fails the other works?
 
I think Gigabyte did a couple of boards with dual BIOSes, but that is going back quite a ways (slot1/BX era) and I've not heard of any since.
For my 2p, I wouldn't trust a Windows-based BIOS update as far as I could throw it. I have done it on a couple of my Abit boards and the few minutes it took were absolutely terrifying. Other than that I have always used floppy, and more recently USB just cos my current boards support it and there's less chance of a read/write error.
 
flibby said:
Just one thing on flashing with a floppy, even if you copy the bios file okay to the disk it might have issues reading and writing if the disk it old. I find that disks that have had a lot of use and never properly formatted cause problem, so format your floppy disk you using with a long format and not just a quick format to avoid any issues. And I always as most people flash from a floppy instead of in Windows.

Don't some boards though come with dual bioses so if one fails the other works?
Click to expand...
Isn't that just a longer version of what I posted?
 
Please excuse my ignorance, but how do you flash the bios from a floppy? As I say above, I've only done it via windows, but you lot have put me off that for life :)
 
keogh said:
Please excuse my ignorance, but how do you flash the bios from a floppy? As I say above, I've only done it via windows, but you lot have put me off that for life :)
Click to expand...

What board is it?
Note in my post above..

The new Blitz board (and maybe others) can't be done with a floppy as the BIOS file is too big.
Example...Blitz-ASUS-Formula-1101.ROM - 2.00 MB (2,097,152 bytes)

Take this slow, and be sure you know what your doing.

If its the board in your sig (ASUS P5N-E SLI) it uses AWDFLASH
Go to http://www.bootdisk.com/ and get Driver Free Disk For BIOS Flashing.
Then look here.
Making the floppy with the thing from bootdisc saves the top part (FORMAT A: /S) on the ASUS page. <making the floppy bootable.
 
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My sig says it all, ASUS P5N-E SLi but it dont matter now, i used my common sense and read the manual.

1. Make a MS DOS boot floppy within Vista.
2. Copy my flash util and bios .bin to another floppy.
3. Boot from the MS DOS floppy
4. Boot the awdflash.exe from dos

So pretty simple :)

Sorry for wasting your times!
 
keogh

I edited my post above.
We all have our own ways of doing this. There are a few people on extremes who still swear that booting to an ME boot floppy > no CD rom support and then sticking in a second floppy containing awdflash and BIOS file is more reliable.
Others say...thats more risky as floppy's go wrong etc.
Others like to use an AUTOEXEC.BAT and do it blind. (a script that flashes it that)

I think AWDFLASH is the most flexible of all the flashing utilities, but it can still fail.
I reckon more Nforce2 boards got sent back after bad flashes, and they used awdflash.
 
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