Originally posted by: Heidfirst
Originally posted by: owbert
i have the pro version and e version and would like to update both of them to version 16.
would i be unable to flash using abit's guide with a thumbdrive?
http://forum.abit-usa.com/showthread.php?t=124207
abit mobos don't have a physical backup BIOS on the mobo (very few mobos do) but often you can recover from a failed flash via the
bootblock or ultimately you can replace the BIOS chip as it is socketed unlike many other mobo manufacturers who now use BIOS chips soldered to the mobo.
Having spent many hours reading the posts on this m/b and eventually buying one, I feel it's time to give something back.
A small snippet, associated with the post quoted and prompted by a failed BIOS update using FlashMenu ( yes, I know I shouldn't have but it all seemed SOOOO easy

).
I have, last night, successfully managed to re-flash my corrupted BIOS as this board does in fact have a boot block BIOS. You can see this, though I hope you never do, when the BIOS checksum check fails, for example, as mine did, as the screen will display boot block BIOS and attempts to access the A: drive.
After some frantic searching the next day at work, I found this link
http://www.wimsbios.com/faq/ho...ecoveracorruptbios.jsp. The part about only supporting ISA video maybe out of date, as I saw it all happen before my eyes, with a PCI-e card.
I simply created a boot floppy, in XP that as easy as right-clicking A:, doing a full format not Quick and checking the "Create MS-DOS system disc" box.
I then deleted all but the file IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS and COMMAND.COM, these are all that are needed and you'll need the space, with the BIOS binary taking up a megabyte.
Using the batch files from the aBit website as a guide, I created an AUTOEXEC.BAT file ( this is the only action that the boot block BIOS will take, executing the AUTOEXEC.BAT ) containing the following command: AWDFLASH.EXE M630A17.BIN /py /sn /cc /cd /cp /cks /r
I took the underscore out of the filename, just in case it made it an invalid one, given the basic level we are working at. Call me over-cautious if you like but at this stage, I was taking no chances. I copied that to the floppy, along with AWDFLASH.EXE and the BIOS binary file.
I popped that in the drive, restarted and hey-presto, it re-flashed the BIOS and I had my PC back...phew!!!
It sounds easy but what I didn't mention, so as not to mask the important info was that I had left the floppy drive out of the PC when installing the IP35-E, just to make the case look more tidy. The drive was to hand and the cable but could I find a floppy power connector on the Seasonic S12-430, no, until I discovered it's actually a converter lead for a molex, d'oh.
That wasn't all. It seems the BIOS binary file was corrupt, as the flash stopped after about 30secs and that fateful der-der, der-der, der-der sound you get from a floppy read retry. Luckily, I'd brought home a spare PC from work but that took me an hour to rig up and get connected to the Internet to download a fresh file, not to mention lugging the old CRT monitor down from the loft, at 22:00, when everybody else was in bed, as I didn't have a lead to connect my new TFT to a VGA gfx card.
Well, there you have it. This post looks overly long now so I best stop and finish with the following advice:
1. KEEP THAT FLOPPY DRIVE. Paint it a nice colour, hide it behind a panel or something, just keep it.
2. Have a BIOS flash floppy handy
3. NEVER, NEVER, EVER use FlashMenu, EVER.
Thanks for lsitening and being a great source of info,
I've been MikeyT, have a nice day.