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re: Creating a paper weight
Wednesday, June 4, 2008 at 11:53 am Windows 98 Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by gewg_
(3521 messages posted)
||:BIOS is programming that controls low-level hardware operations,
||:including interactions with diskette drives, hard disk drives, and the keyboard.
||:The BIOS is stored on a chip. Your computer uses flash BIOS,
||:which can be updated through a program on a flash diskette
||:so that you do not have to replace the BIOS chip to update the BIOS.
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||It's contradicting itself.
|| Jack Hall
||
I don't see where that is true.
"Flash diskette" is needlessly verbose
--but that is referring to its *purpose*, not its physical nature.
The box has to be able to POST to accomplish this task.
The Bootstrap Routine runs and,
if CMOS Settings are correct, boots to the floppy which executes a flashing program.
(I don't think it even loads an OS kernel--just an x86-compatible binary.)
|BIOS chips and CMOS chips nowadays
|commonly are not ROMS burned once and for all at the factory.
|They are EPROMS and new firmware can be loaded.
| dhm
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Actually, they are EEPROMS (*Electrically* Erasable)
which is what allows this in-place re-programming.
Most recently, the devices are NAND Flash Memory, an extension of that meme.
Any PROM used in an IBM-PC has *always* been re-programmable,
starting with the socketed, UV-erasable 2764 PROMs used in 1981.
The in-place thing came a bit later.
|Flash BIOS refers to this.
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...if you put the second "E" on the front.
|Find the flash program on the diskette. Run it.
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|First consult the manufacturer: [link]
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You've reminded me of the old joke about the 2 guys pinned down in combat
and try to use a hand grenade by using an instruction manual
which was written by a guy who should be in another line of work.
"Throw grenade at enemy"
{chuck}
"...but first pull the pin." 8-(
Step Zero in flashing a BIOS is to make sure you have rock-stable power.
Make sure the power cord can't be bumped or tripped over or otherwise disturbed.
A fully-charged uninteruptable power source is advised as well.
(It bugs be when some folks call something with an AC output a "power supply".)
Any perturbation during the process WILL result in the MoBo becoming a paperweight
and, by extension, the computer becoming a doorstop or boat anchor.
That is, an improperly flashed Bootstrap Routine
will not allow the MoBo to boot to ANYTHING.
The only recourse is to unsolder the ROM BIOS
and replace it with one containing valid code.
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 |  |  | re: Creating a paper weight (gewg_: Wed, Jun 4, 2008, 11:53 am) |
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