Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P BIOS flash problems

[smokeyjoe]

This might get a little lengthy.. My trials and tribulations trying to update Bios for GA-MA770T-UD3P Rev: 1.0.

1st attempt: make a bootable CD and another with F5 Bios on it, get message:

"the boot files are in drive letter A:
the bios utilities are in drive letter R:"

Can't change to drive letter R:, insert CD with bios on it, 0 files are found.

2nd attempt: make bootable floppy with Bios on it, boots fine, run the flash program, get message saying !Bad Image! and some other weird symbols

3rd attempt: make a HD FAT32 partition and put the Bios on that, go into QFlash utility, it sees the partition and the file - MA77TUD3.F5, go to flash it and get "BIOS ID Check Error" - double check and I do have the correct Bios for my revision of 1.0.. seems 1.0 and 1.1 are the same anwyay

4th attempt: make a HD FAT partition and put the Bios on that, go into QFlash utility, it sees the partition and the file - MA77TUD3.F5, go to flash it and get "checksum = de00" I DO NOT flash it as I don't know what the hell that means. Further attempts to flash to the F4 bios also give a checksum error.

Any ideas? I'm at a loss and completely frustrated.

Thanks!

 

[Iron Woode]

make sure you use the BIOS for that revision only. Make sure its not the European revision.

next try downloading the bios from a different server. you could have downloaded a bad copy previously.

try a thumbdrive to flash the BIOS.

I have never had a problem flashing from an MSboot disk created by XP.

edit: check to see if there is a BIOS flash allow/disallow option in the BIOS.

 

[smokeyjoe]

There are no other servers to download the "American" version of the Bios.. I don't know if that is the issue as both of the bios I tried give a checksum error?

Something I should clarify, I made FLoppy boot disks through XP and when I put them in the drive to boot from into my new Win7 system, they do not work. Any floppy I format in XP is not being read properly when the floppy is in my Win7 system. I had to use an old bootdisk and put the bios on an older, formatted floppy in order to read them - but these gave me a bad image message as I stated in my first post.

I don't have a thumbdrive, guess I'll buy one and try that.

 

[Iron Woode]

There are no other servers to download the "American" version of the Bios.. I don't know if that is the issue as both of the bios I tried give a checksum error?

Something I should clarify, I made FLoppy boot disks through XP and when I put them in the drive to boot from into my new Win7 system, they do not work. Any floppy I format in XP is not being read properly when the floppy is in my Win7 system. I had to use an old bootdisk and put the bios on an older, formatted floppy in order to read them - but these gave me a bad image message as I stated in my first post.

I don't have a thumbdrive, guess I'll buy one and try that.

set your BIOS boot order to first boot from a floppy.

then create a MSDos boot disk from within XP. Alternatively you can download one from http://www.bootdisk.com

put the bios and its flash utility on the floppy

put the floppy in the floppy drive and reboot the PC.

you will now be in a DOS mode and you can run the flash utility.

 

[smokeyjoe]

Thanks for trying to help me out Iron Woode.

I did do exactly as you said in the last post before I even made this thread.. when I ran the flash utility is when I got the !Bad Image! message with some strange symbols on the screen. I reset after that and it didn't see to have any effect. My mobo, and all Gigabyte mobo's I think, has a dual bios.. so it's hard to completely screw it up (knock on wood).

I bought a flash drive and am having the same "checksum = de00" error with F5 bios and "checksum = eoo4 (or something)" with F4 bios.

This is frustrating ><

Edit: slight update.. So I am trying the Floppy method again, but with discs formatted in Win7. The boot disk I made gives an error, like I/O error I believe it was.. I try another one, also doesn't work. So I go back to bios to try QFlash again.. insert the floppy I formatted in Win7 and put the F5 bios on.. it has been reading it now for about ten minutes, the bar is complete but the disk just keeps getting read over and over.. it says to not reset or turn off power, but this is ridiculous

 

[VirtualLarry]

It sounds like your floppy disks or drive are on their way out.

I would flash using a USB flash drive. You can make the flash drive bootable with the HP flash tool (google it). Then just copy the DOS boot system files onto it, and then the flash BIOS files. Then boot off of it. Works every time for me.

 

[smokeyjoe]

It sounds like your floppy disks or drive are on their way out.

I would flash using a USB flash drive. You can make the flash drive bootable with the HP flash tool (google it). Then just copy the DOS boot system files onto it, and then the flash BIOS files. Then boot off of it. Works every time for me.

Thanks for the link, that finally worked for me.. though I had to do it in XP as win7 wouldn't run the program due to some admin rights error when I was logged in as an admin. Still learning the basics of 7, been on xp for years and never tried vista.

 

[alexruiz]

Why didn't you try to flash form within the BIOS with q-flash?
That works much better Put the bios is a flash drive, and you are done

 

[smokeyjoe]

Why didn't you try to flash form within the BIOS with q-flash?
That works much better Put the bios is a flash drive, and you are done

I did try that and either the Floppy would hang, or the bios was giving a check ID error - with flash drive and with FAT partitioned HD. Either way, I was able to flash to the latest bios.. but unable to lock the additional cores on my phenom without a BSOD on windows 7 startup ><

Any ideas on that? Though I'm pretty sure I just have to live with the 2