Dan, there are some viruses that do corrupt/kill the BIOS. I went thru' this
before. Fortunately, I had taken a dump of the BIOS earlier.

Let me explain; this is a catch-22 situation. There is a utility available
(I can send it to you) that reprograms the BIOS. But, of course it is meant
for updates, not reprogramming a completely corrupted BIOS. That is, you
should be able to boot up the system first, and have a hex image of your
BIOS, when it was working. Of course, you can purchase this from the
manufacturer as well, if you can identify your motherboard precisely. I also
have another utlity which does precisely this.

So, if you dont have a hex dump of your BIOS taken earlier, this is the way
to go; first identify your motherboard for manufacturer and version. Then
visit the BIOS manufacturer's site, and purchase a dump for the latest
version of the BIOS supporting your motherboard. Then, if your system is
booting, run the utility which will automatically re-program the new image.
If your system is beyond booting, you will have to have access to a flash
EPROM programmer to do the same. Either way, once you get it working, make
sure you take an image of the BIOS and tuck it some place safe for future
use!

Regards,

Anand

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dans_PIC_Stuff" <dans_pic_stuff@HOTMAIL.COM>
To: <PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2002 11:55 PM
Subject: [OT]: BIOS fried? Can be reprogrammed?


> Hi. I have a computer here that is as follows...
> P3 500Mhz
> 256-PC100
> ASUS P3B-F
> Award BIOS
>
> I think the BIOS is dead (not sure how, was working before I Fdisked the
> HD).  Upon starting it up, it will detect the Processor and count memory
> just like normal.  If I press "del" to enter setup, the screen goes blank
> with a flashing cursor in the top left corner.  It stays this way forever.
> It also does this if you let it try to boot normally, but I believe it is
> doing that because it is trying to enter setup automatically.  (It does
that
> if you power it off while detecting the CPU speed durring POST).  I was
> wondering if anybody here knew if it is possible to reprogram the BIOS
chip.
> And if so, does anybody have a programmer that can handle such chips?
> Thanks for any help.
>
>    -Dan
>
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