EMC2 mean anything to anyone?

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A

Archman

Senior member
Apr 25, 2002
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Howdy people.

I recently purchased a twinhead p88T model notebook, made especially for EMC2 company, and tried to flash the BIOS to the latest one for the p88T models from Twinhead's site... now the dang thing is beeping and not booting up... well I need to find the BIOS from EMC2, but nowhere on there website is it available... they probably used these laptops for servers... not sure, but does anyone have any ideas on where I could find a BIOS?

I already emailed them thrice, and no response :(

Thanks
 
Z

Zepper

Elite Member
May 1, 2001
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Where'd you buy it? EMC2 doesn't sell laptops. They were probably made by Twinhead for them for in-house use by their sales and/or executive personnel. Perhaps it was stolen??? IAC, the standard BIOS should work - try reflashing. And I don't see any model no. like p88T on the Twinhead web site...
.bh.
 
A

Archman

Senior member
Apr 25, 2002
458
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0
Originally posted by: Zepper
Where'd you buy it? EMC2 doesn't sell laptops. They were probably made by Twinhead for them for in-house use by their sales and/or executive personnel. Perhaps it was stolen??? IAC, the standard BIOS should work - try reflashing. And I don't see any model no. like p88T on the Twinhead web site...
.bh.
Click to expand...

I got it off of eBay, and I realize that Twinhead makes the laptops, but it was used by EMC2 in house... I guess they recently got rid of older notebooks and upgraded.

The model of the notebook is actually a P88TREMC, and on the BIOS chip itself, it has a sticker with this written on it:

"PZ-586
R 1.03.0008
EMC"

So I am guessing that the BIOS was specially made for it. There is one slight variation from the other P88T/TE/TF models, as it has built in NIC, all of the other Twinhead books only have a 56k modem onboard. This was perhaps a special request for EMC2.

Anyways, from the looks of it, I will need to find someone that can reprogram the little PLLC BIOS chip, as it will not boot up anymore, it just makes a beeping sound and the screen stays black.

Thanks... and if anyone knows of where I may find the BIOS from EMC2 I would appreciate it a lot.

:D
 
Z

Zepper

Elite Member
May 1, 2001
18,998
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0
Usually you can force a flash via a floppy boot process there are two different bioses listed for the p88T - maybe one will work... And there is an ATFer nickname DJMiX that is a BIOS maven.
.bh.
 
Z

Zepper

Elite Member
May 1, 2001
18,998
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0
Set up a boot floppy.
Copy the flash utility and the bios file to it. I always download two copies of the bios file and check one against the other to be sure I got a good download. http://www.karenware.com has a couple of good utilities for checking files using the MD5 hash or other hashing protocols. If you choose to use the karenware utils, be sure you have the Visual BASIC driver installed first (before attempting to install or use any other of her utils) - you can DL it from Karen's site as well.
Create an autoexec.bat file to run the flash command line.
Usually a command like awardfl (or whatever name your flashing utility goes by) /? will give you the command line syntax.

The autoexec.bat file for a typical boot flash would have a line like this:

awdflash bios.bin oldbios.bin /py/sn/wb/cd/cc/cp/R

where
bios.bin=the name of the new flash data file (should never be more than 8.3 characters)
oldbios.bin=the name to use if saving the current bios to a file (use only if the current bios works)
py=Flash the BIOS
/sn=don't save a copy of the current bios (don't use this if the current bios works - use /sy instead)
/sb=skip flashing the boot block - use this initially as it is the boot block that allows the boot flash process to work at all. If the boot flash attempt fails, then probably the boot block is also corrupt and you will have to use other means to get your BIOS flashed. If the BIOS chip isn't removable (socketed) it is likely you'll have to send it off to Twinhead. Check with DJMix first to see if he can do anything like that.
. If the boot flash attempt appears to have succeeded but the BIOS isn't the right one, then on the next boot flash attempt you can use /wb instead of /sb, to write the boot block as well if you want. But maybe it would be safer to continue to use the current boot block code until you have the proper bios installed.
/cd=clear DMI data after flash
/cc=clear CMOS ram after flash
/cp=clear ESCD data after flash
/R=reset computer after flash

The syntax for your flash utility should be similar.

Once you have the proper bios installed, run the flash again with /wb - then run it again with /wb. This will insure that the BIOS and boot-block code is in there solidly.

.bh.

p.s. You also want to check your computer mfr's web site for specific instructions on what to do in case of a failed flash attempt. Any good mfr. will have such instructions.bh.
 
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