Thinking of flashing my BIOS - how/can I back up the old one?

[MichaelD]

I'm having some probs getting the Highpoint drivers to load on my new Shuttle AV35GTR. It's been suggested that my current BIOS doesn't match the HPT drivers...which makes no sense to me. But I'm considering flashing the bios, as Shuttle has newer one listed on their site.

Is there a way to back up the old bios in case something goes wrong witht the flashing process? As you can tell, I've never flashed a bios before and am very nervous about it. :Q Thanks.

 

[gregor7777]

Well, if you know the date of your bios, you could just pull that off their site as well. I suspect that you will be ok as long as you follow their directions to the letter. DO NOT HAVE IT OVERCLOCKED WHEN YOU UPGRADE. That could cause some issues, to be sure.

 

[DocDon]

Most BIOS flash utilities have a backup built in -- Run the program and it will ask if you want to backup the old BIOS --

 

[dunkster]

Multiwave offers the Bios Savior, a hardware solution allowing two resident BIOS versions (only one can be active).

It's basically a piggy-back programmable rom chip, supplied with a switch to allow quick selection of which rom chip is active.

Nice convenience for comparing BIOS versions. Great insurance against BIOS disasters such as mis-flash or virus attack.

Hope this helps!

 

[MichaelD]

Thanks guys. I may be flashing the bios tonight, depending on how some other things go....thanks again.

 

[CTho9305]

it occured to me you might be able to drop a 2nd BIOS chip into a network card that has a flash socket, but instead of flashing it with a network-bootable BIOS, flash it with a motherboard BIOS. instant backup. I haven't gotten around to trying it out yet cause I dont have a spare bios chip.