Like a dunce, I flashed the wrong BIOS onto my old Micron M55hi plus motherboard that I am setting up to play old DOS games. I don't get display now, just beep codes reminding me that I f--ed up.

1. Removing the battery for a long time did nothing.
2. Resetting pins W8 and W10, even simultaneously, did nothing.

http://docs.van-diepen.com/th99/m/M-O/33513.htm

Perhaps it's because I don't understand old motherboards. What exactly does pin W8 (Flash BIOS recovery mode) do? If I need to create a recovery disk with the correct BIOS version, how specifically do I make it?

The motherboard manual on mpccorp.com said nothing of the issue, probably because they figure only geniuses flash their BIOS with the incorrect version. A million gold stars if you can help. Thank you!

There's actually a hardware forum here y'know

A bad flash is usually the last thing you'll ever do to a machine. If you can't replace the BIOS chip, it's probably game over.

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

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did the flash program make a backup of the old bios program or can you download the correct one ? IF the answer is yes , you my still be in luck. I suspect the the W8 jumper is to let the comp boot to a floppy for a new bios flash, there will be no display for the operation.

If the flash program did not make a backup (do a directory listing on the floppy) or the correct bios version is not at website, you are in trouble.

http://www.biosman.com/replacement.htm

DO NOT BAN THE MESSENGER

I think the first bad bios upgrade I ever did was on a M55hi motherboard. The bios upgrades for that board were confusing. I think there were two different motherboard models named M55hi. One was a micronics board made specifically for it's usage in a micron computer. The other was a micronics board for non-micron computers.

Yes, Dave, there are two versions and that's where I went with the wrong one! Glad I'm not the only one to find this motherboard confusing.

Thank you for the information, Topfarmer! I made a bootdisk containing the *correct* bios: (http://support.mpccorp.com/apps/filelist.asp?ID=3094), set W8 to recovery mode, and tried to boot to the disk.

Unfortunately, after hitting ENTER to flash the bios (remember I'm in the dark here), nothing happened.

Then I tried the process again with "flash.bat", ENTER, then ENTER again. Still nothing after several minutes and setting the W8 pin back.

I've tried a few different combinations now with no luck.

What really discouraged me though was how the floppy "read" led didn't light, even though it's plugged in and everything and no hard disks are installed. Oh, I've also tried the above operations with W10 set to "CMOS memory clear" and when that didn't work, "normal".

I'm really beat. Why these fancy pin settings if they don't work? Do I need to take the battery out again or while performing the operations? Did I make an improper bootdisk?

This is about as bizarre a computer problem as I've had.

I rummaged through a closet until I came across an old ISA multi-out board with a floppy connector. Installed it, and yay! the floppy LED turns ON immediately when I boot.

It's got that bootdisk in there now, and every minute or two I hear it grunt (the floppy drive, I think!). But it's been about ten minutes, so somebody please snap their finger to wake me up if I'm wasting my time.. and electricity.

I don't recall what problems I had with the wrong update. I remember I didn't get it fixed but I don't think I tried adding a multi card.

If you can get the floppy to boot using the multi card then you'd need to run the correct update or install the original version if available.

Some of those cards had jumpers configuring the addresses of the ports. If that's the case with yours you should change them in case there's a conflict with the on-board ports. Also disable its IDE ports if you can.

You may need to try a different disk if it's still not booting up.

Apparently, disk or no disk, the floppy LED turns on, and stays on. This is getting depressing.

I'll search for jumpers on the card Dave, thanks. Anyone else with suggestions?

The cable may be connected wrong. The red striped edge of the ribbon cable needs to be connected to the #1 pin side of both the drive and card. Usually there will be a '1' or '34' by the pins indicating which side is which.

Also, on cables with the 7-wire twist (which now is most floppy cables) the a: drive needs to be attached to the connection after the twist. So it would be:
motherboard--twist--a: drive.

Again, thank you Dave for bearing with me.

I didn't know that about the red stripe and the 7-wire twist, but apparently the twist I had right, and the red stripe I had.. wrong! Well, wrong at least on the ISA card.

But now I'm really confused. When I had it wrong, the floppy LED turned on and stayed on during boot. When I fixed it right, the floppy LED stayed off. Of course, neither seemed to boot to the disk.

My only chance as far as I can tell is to get the pin settings right on this mysterious ISA card that has no name. I will upload a pic of the card, if someone thinks they might be able to make sense of lots of jumpers?

I doubt that the comp would know how to boot from a isa card. the bad flash bios routine is very limited on it programing.

This suggestion came from a web site about, no kidding here, the computer BIOS.

http://www.wimsbios.com/HTML1/faq.html#q27

I'd like to know for sure I've destroyed this motherboard before I buy a new one. Guess that makes me a hopeless completist. :)

It's typical for the floppy drive light to stay on when the cable is reversed.

The main problem with adding drive cards to a motherboard with on-board controllers is interference between the two.

I have a file that has jumper settings for hundreds of old cards. If you can determine the manufacturer I can probably find it. A pic of it may help if there's any notation on it about the jumpers.

the book i have disagrees with the web site, I do not know.
In my book it says to use a bare bones setup, only cpu,1 stick memory, floppy drive, internal speaker.

When you first flashed the bios , did you have to enter any data via keyboard ? If so that must be changed, (no keyboard operational). Do you know if it wrote the old bios it floppy ? If so that must be disabled (bios at this point does not know how)

You may have to enter in the autoexec.bat the needed pariameters for the flash program.

be sure to have W8 in recovery mode pins 2,3 and W10 in normal mode pins 1,2.

You might want to do a thorough scandisk on the floppy to verify it is good.

Dave, that is awesome, could you perhaps send me the file? Otherwise, I will borrow my dad's digital and take a snapshot.

Or maybe it's not worth it, yet. Topfarmer, I'm following your knowledge and removing the multi-card, as well as the extra memory sticks and video card.

I do remember using the keyboard to flash the bios previously with the bootdisk, so I guess I need to make a different disk. I've never (successfully) messed with parameters in files like autoexec.bat before, so any information or resources you have on this topic I would humbly appreciate.

I can tell this is about to get exciting. What'd I do with that superman cape?

hey, cool! I feel like I'm almost there, but not quite. I found this website: http://www.bioscentral.com/postcodes/phoenixbios.htm for Phoenix BIOS, which I have.

The section at the bottom of the page, "boot block in flash rom", is this what I need? What should my autoexec.bat file look like when I'm through?

Ugh, sorry for the millions of posts. Obviously I didn't know what I was talking about above, I just keep learning.

I'm going to try the following procedure instead: http://www.fic.com.tw/support/motherboard/faq/faqbios.aspx#bios7

But I hope I'm not doing something stupid(er)?

I think in your last web site posted "boot block in flash rom" is bios error codes ?

Due to all bios flash programs are different more info on program is required. What is its name and download site?

there should be a readme file, just what does it say on how to run program? Open autoexce.bat in notepad and post its contents.
With the above info hopefully I or DAVEINCAPS can help with modification to autoexec.bat.

We have to remember that there is no display or keyboard that the recovery bios will be useing,(may hang if attemt to use) it only knows how to read a floppy and mybe how to use the speaker.

The file is about 10 meg. It's compressed in a .gz format. That extracts to an 89 meg .tar file. Extracting the .tar file gives nearly 15,000 files that use nearly 500 meg of HD space. Once extracted there is an .htm file that acts as a table of contents.

The 10 meg file is probably too large to email. I think I'll try to upload it to driverguide. Once I've done that I'll post back with the link.

Here it is:

Driverguide #377259

You can still use drivers and all for user and password at driverguide or you can create your own account.

Thanks for the file, Dave!

Hi Topfarmer, I hope I am giving you the right information. From the file m55hi_04.exe (http://support.mpccorp.com/apps/filelist.asp?ID=3093):

M55HIP.04
phlash.exe
readme.txt
platform.bin
FLASH.BAT

The readme says:

--------

SECTION 1 - BIOS FLASH UPDATE PROCEDURE

1. The file you have downloaded is an image file that will create a bootable floppy diskette.

2. Insert a blank floppy diskette into your floppy drive.

3. Double click the image file you download.

4. It will begin to automatically create a bootable floppy diskette with the BIOS update files.

5. Reboot your system leaving the floppy diskette in the floppy drive.

6. Your system will now boot to the floppy diskette created in the steps above.

7. Type "Flash.bat" (without quotes) after the "A" prompt and press [Enter] to begin the BIOS flash update.

8. When the flash update is complete remove the floppy diskette.

9. Reboot your system using [CTRL-ALT-DEL].

10. Press [F2] to enter the CMOS setup utility when the Micron Electronics banner is displayed.

11. Restore the BIOS defaults and press [F10] to save settings and exit.

12. This loads the new BIOS information and completes the update.

13. Your system will now complete the rebooting process.

14. Shutdown and power your system off.

----------

So, as you can see, no autoexec.bat on the bootdisk. Did I give you the information you need to help? I'm not sure what flash program I should use?

OK, what I just tried to do:

Made a "driver free disk for BIOS flashing" from bootdisk.com containing: autoexec.bat and command.com

Then, I added files: flash.bat and platform.bin from the Micron BIOS disk I made earlier.

I edited autoexec.bat. It now reads:
@echo off
cls

flash platform.bin /Py /Sn

And I tried the disk. Nothing happened. I should note I'm now running without the keyboard/mouse/etc. plugged in, no PCI/ISA cards of any kind, only one stick of ram, and the floppy connected (correctly) to the motherboard and power supply.

What am I doing wrong?

only bad news :)

I downloaded "m55hi_04.exe" and ran it. Tried to boot comp and received "NTLDR error" (?).

Looked at floppy and there are no boot files, so the floppy it made is NON bootable.

Next ran in a DOS window "phlash /?" to look at switches, found needed files to run:
1: platform.bin (manufacture specific initialization file)
2:Bios.rom (Bios rom image file) "missing"

may use : response file containing more options --"M55hip.04"

looking at files on floppy there is NO Bios.rom file to update the bios (??), so it looks like that file "m55hi_04.exe" is next to useless. ( I could be wrong)

all may not yet be lost, hopfuly you still have the first floppy made to update with, the first bad flash. If so , does it contain a file named "bios.bak"?

if it does you need to copy bios.bak to "driver free disk for BIOS flashing" and rename it to bios.bin also copy from the Micron BIOS disk "phlash.exe and M55hiip.04" .
the autoexec.bat needs only
phlash m55hip.04

can not have (may cause the comp to hang)
@echo off
cls

I think my post above has some bad info. :)

Decieded that file named "M55hip.04" is the bios.bin file.

On your "driver free disk for BIOS flashing" floppy copy files :phlash.exe, M55hip.04, platform.bin from the "Micron BIOS disk"

edit autoexec.bat to have only
phlash m55hip.04

do not have
@echo off
cls
there is no display, could cause comp to hang

It looks like the image modified the boot sector as an alternative means of booting up but I too get the 'missing ntldr'.

But you should be able to get around that. After you create the disk by running M55HI_4.EXE, copy it's contents back to an empty folder on the hard drive. Then, with the floppy disk still in the a: drive, type format/u a:/s and enter. When it's done you'll have a bootable floppy disk. The copy the original files back to the bootdisk you just made. Boot the Micron with it and at the a:\> prompt type flash and enter.

This assumes the a: drive will actually boot up. If you haven't fixed that then no disk will boot.

As always, thanks for seeing me through this guys.

Followed your suggestion Topfarmer (and several variations), and I am stupefied why it still won't work. I think if only the boot block would recognize the floppy drive, I'd be fine; I'm not getting the LED at any time, not even briefly.

Appreciate the walkthrough Dave. I'm using Win2000 on my "good" computer, and for some reason it doesn't like the format a:/s command in any prompt. But I've been using the "driver free disk for bios flashing" under first "bootdisk" section at http://www.bootdisk.com. Is there any difference?

I'm going to look over the index.htm Dave sent for my ISA I/O card. Otherwise, is it time to kick this old MB out the window?

Thanks and cheers!

The bootdisks from bootdisk.com should work OK. After you create one of their disks, then delete all the files on it except for io.sys, msdos.sys and command.com. Io.sys and msdos.sys are hidden files and won't normally show up.

Then copy the files from the micron disk to the bootdisk and boot the micron with it and type 'flash' at the prompt.

DAVEINCAPS: everything I have read on bad flash recovery (no alot of reading) , the small recovery program on mobod bios will only read a floppy with no display or keyboard useage.

the flash program would need ran from autoexec.bat. the flash.bat contains "phlash m55hip.04". Flash.bat can be renamed autoexec.bat

JIMI: "I'm not getting the LED at any time, not even briefly." that is not good. You might have to try the ISA card (but dont think it would work ?)

Are you sure that the ribbon cable and power are connected good to the floppy ? You have W8 in the recovery position ? W10 in Normal position ? Might try reseting the memory, or some other cable or connect knocked loose.
Might try changeing W12 ?

Have you been at Mpccorp (hot link will open new window) at bottom of page there is a users manual that might help.

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TopFarmer, I wasn't aware of that method of booting after a bad upgrade. That's helpful to know.

But it does seem a bad upgrade always affects being able to boot from a:. Fortunately I've only had 2 or 3 bad upgrades in several dozen attempts.

I have never had a bad bios flash so I am only going by what I have read, hopefully it is correct.:)

JIMI: I do not know just what you now have in the comp but looking at the manual (might not be correct one) and the site you posted on motherboard , you must have 2 memory sims ,same size installed in bank 0. your mobord requires sets of 2 sims installed.

Hope you get it working and let use know how.

And the winner is... M55Hi motherboard, for defeating me!

Topfarmer and Dave,
I really do appreciate all your time and effort in helping me with this problem. I know I've learned a lot, and hopefully others will learn from this thread possible ways to fix bad bios flashing.

Thanks so much! I'm off to ebay..

You're welcome. Well it's an old board anyway. I think it's a socket 5--only takes up to about a 133 mhz chip.