Emergency Bios Recovery

[kaiyin.lee 0]

Please Help!!

 

I just bought a MSI K7 master yesderday, and after setting up the operating system and everything, I noticed the bios was a bit funny as sometimes when I made changes to it, the bios crashed and would need to be reset.

 

Therefore, I installed the LiveUpdate software and ran it. During the bios flash (it was in windows) an error message said "verify failed" and rebooted. Since then, the motherboard has been unable to boot.

 

When I boot up now, the board just repeatedly produces a short beep, and I can see nothing on the monitor.

 

I know the bios is probable corrupt but is there a way to recover from it? I tried to make an emergency recovery disk by making an floppy with awdf789.exe, w6341kms.100 and an autoexec.bat to run it, but it will not load it (the floppy light comes briefly while booting).Am I doing the right thing or is there something missing?

 

I want to try and repait it myself before replacing it as I live quite far from the place I got it from. Please help!

 

Thanks in advance

[Brian Frank 0]

Ive been told NEVER EVER FLASH THE BIOS FROM WITHIN WINDOWS! Now, at your expense unfortunately, I see why.

Unless Im wrong, you need either a new mobo or a new bios chip, because right now you are F*CKED!

[clutch 1]

Unfortunately, if your BIOS is that far gone it is no longer bright enough to understand what your floppy drive is, let alone boot anything off of it. You will need another chip, if this is the case.

 

Sorry.

 

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Regards,

 

clutch

[Shrink 0]

Get your motherboard manual and see how to reset your cmos (involves shorting a jumper on your motherboard - FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS IN YOUR MANUAL). If you can reset your cmos, that **might** allow you to boot. If not, see if you can get your hands on an isa graphics card and you **might** be able to boot with that (enough for the monitor to light up). In the meantime, on another computer, make a CLEAN boot disk (no autoexec.bat or config.sys - just the io.sys, command.com and whatever the other file is), copy the bios flash utility onto it along with the bios file. Create an autoexec.bat file that has the commands for flashing your bios (check the mobo manufacturer's site for this info). For example:

 

AWDFLASH.EXE <bios file name> /py /sn /cd /cp /cc

 

(that line is from the batch file that comes with the awdflash utility from abit. If you have an award bios it may work for you as well.

 

In the meantime, while you are messing with this, call MSI and have them send you a new bios chip in case you don't get it working.

 

Good luck:-(

 

 

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Shrink

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"If you define cowardice as running away at the first sign of danger, screaming and tripping and begging for mercy, then yes, Mr. Brave man, I guess I'm a coward."

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PIII 650@850; BE6-II Mobo with 384 mb PC133 ram; 40GB WD Caviar, 20 gig Quantum KX, 8 gig Quantum CR; Ricoh 7060a burner; Aopen 52X CDRom; ATAPI Zip 100; SBlive Value; Realtech NIC; All In Wonder Radeon AGP; a bunch of USB Stuff (keyboard, mouse, scanner, hubs, blah blah); Windows 2000 Pro SP1; and a partridge in a pear tree.

[kaiyin.lee 0]

I tried plugging in the board again and it looks like the boot block is dead. The floppy light won't even come on.

 

Looks like I need a new bios chip

 

Any of you guys know where I can get one in the UK?

 

By the way, thanks for the quick replies!!

[Brian Frank 0]

Shrink is right: call MSI for a new bios chip. They may refer you to a bios vendor, but you'll be on track. Unless you feel like investing in another mobo.

[kaiyin.lee 0]

Hi,

 

Just phoned MSI and it looks like they might be able to send a new bios chip to the UK, although they said that the K7 Master is not released in the US yet so I'm waiting for a reply from them.

 

Thanks again for the help, I'll let you know what happens.