Recovering from a Failed Upgrade

It is rare, but sometimes something goes wrong while trying to upgrade the BIOS. If something interrupts it, it could leave the computer in an unstartable state. Although this can really freak you out, it is possible to recover. Below is an outline of how to do so:

1. Make sure you have the power supply connected and floppy drive connected as A:. Also, make sure you have a PC speaker connected. More than likely, you will have no video at all, so your PC speaker and the floppy LED will be the only way to tell what is going on.
2. Find the “flash recovery” jumper on your motherboard and put it into recovery mode.
3. Install the bootable upgrade disk into Drive A:.
4. Reboot the system.
5. When the system beeps and the floppy LED is lit, it is copying code. When the LED goes off, it is done.
6. Turn the system off. Do not shut the system off until the flash utility says it is safe to do so.
7. Change the flash recovery mode jumper back to default.
8. Leaving the disk in drive A:, turn the system back on.
9. Continue the upgrade process laid out above.

If your motherboard does not offer the flash recovery mode option, then there are a few things to consider. First, it is possible that you encountered some fluke in the system that caused the upgrade to pause or cause your system to not tell you it is OK to reboot. Regardless, you can try to re-flash the BIOS. The way to do this is to put the flash utility onto a system disk along with the BIOS .bin file. Then, you create a quick autoexec.bat file and put the command into it to run the flash utility immediately after boot-up. This is one way to flash the BIOS when video is out.

Another problem could be that the BIOS you flashed with is problematic or somehow not suitable for your system. In this case, you can download a previous version of the BIOS from the manufacturer website and perform the above procedure with it to again re-flash your BIOS to a known-good version.

If all fails, then you will need to contact the manufacturer for instruction or a new BIOS chip.

Installing A New Chip

Most of the time, if one can’t flash the BIOS, then he/she just buys another board. This is usually the recommended option. But, some boards will allow you to just pluck the old BIOS chip off and put a new on. Usually, it is the older boards that can do this.

Finding the BIOS chips can be somewhat frustrating. To make sure you get the right kind, you can go to the place where you bought your motherboard and see if they have any. You can also look in computer mags for ads that advertise ROM-BIOS. Just make sure you know what kind you have and a computer guy at the shop should be able to fit you with something better. Remember, I described how to find your BIOS in the Motherboards page. You can also find out what type you have on start-up. Watch the screen, and it may say something similar to AMIBIOS (C)1992.

Now let me tell you how to put it in:

1. Turn off the computer, unplug it, and take the case off.
2. Find your old BIOS. If you have several BIOS chips, note what order they are in. Sometimes they are marked as such. The new BIOS will need to be put in in the same order.
3. Remove the old chips. If there is anything in the way, get it out of there. Now get a chip-puller. This is a tweezer-like tool. This makes it easier to yank it out. If you don’t have a chip-puller, and not everyone does, you can gently use a flat head screwdriver to lift up each side of the chip little by little until it is out.
4. Insert the new ones. Install them in the correct order. Also, make sure the notched end of the chip matches the notched end of the socket. Make sure that the little pins on the chip are straight. While installing them, put the first row of pins in first. Then slowly lower the other side into the socket, making sure they line up with the holes. After you’re finished, give the chips a final push down, just to make sure.
5. Put everything you took out back in. Clean up your mess. Put the case on.
6. Turn it on. It should boot up and give you a new BIOS date on the screen.