Please help, I already spent $200 for a third party vendor, and they couldnt fix it

[Bannor]

Here's my dilema: I have an IWILL KA-266 mobo. Some Samsung DDR ram, 2*128. Multiple video cards that I have tried on it. Here's the problem. Everything went fine originally. I installed win ME, got to the hardware detection and got the BSOD. I was like allright probably the onboard audio problem. Booted up, and I receive :
AWARD bootBlock BIOS v1.0
BIOS ROM checksum erron
Detecting floppy drive A media...
Automatic Load AWDFLASH.EXE .....
!! ERROR -- AWDFLASH.EXE Not found!!
Well so I dnloaded the latest bios and put that and the AWDFLASH onto diskette. Plugged the baby into the floppy drive and I received the same error. Well now I was stuck. So i took it to a third party computer repair shop. They told me the bios had dissapeared! The reflashed the bios and gave it back to me. I asked how they reflashed it but they wouldnt tell me. Well so i was ok with that and preceeded to reinstall windows with onboard audio disabled. Well it did the same exact thing. So i took it back again, this time they I asked them to write out the steps on how they flashed the mysterios phantom bios. I go to pick it up, they told me they put a password on the bios so I cannot access it. I was like fine as long as it works. So I dont use win ME this time, and load up win98 instead. I get through the installation just fine. But then when im installing my PCI cards, it crashes. I reboot to nothing. It wouldnt even post. SO i take out everything and reseat the ram. Same problem. So i remove the motherboard completely, and put it back together. Now it posts ,but with the award boot block again. I really dont feel like losing more money to this vendor to reflash the bios if its something i can do simply. And i dont know what to do after that. I can try windows 98 installation again i guess, but as long as i can figure out how to flash the bios i'd be fine. Anyone know how? I'm really up sh*t's creek without a paddle here. I already had one IWILL mobo DOA and a processor chipped from newegg.com. Now I have this.....I dont know what to do.. Please help..

 

[Scarpozzi]

I don't know much about this mobo... I would recommend taking it back to the vendor and explain to them that you demand them to release the BIOS. They have NO business locking you out of your own computer. You can always release the password through a jumper on the mobo or reset the password by taking your battery out. Actually, I would suggest giving that a try anyway. Take your battery out for about 30 mins to an hour to reset your CMOS. That might solve some of your problems. I would also try installing Windows without anything except your video card installed. Then add your other devices once you get that installed. Sometimes the driver installation can cause problems if Windows detects onboard devices that have non-standard driver sets or chipsets from common companies... I've seen this recently on a couple of Dell systems (which surprised me). But I would definitely yell at the vendor peeps for locking you out of your system like you don't know what you're doing... I would take that as an insult from them. Also, to reflash your bios, they probably either went to the motherboard manufacturer's website to download the flash bios...or they just reset your CMOS battery(which isn't flashing the bios). Good luck.