So I finally got my hands on an internal floppy drive. I copied over the AWDFLASH.exe and the updated Bios files to a floppy, booted up the PC and voila! It worked! Thanks to everyone here who helped me out, especially ryan_975 and shadow_419. Updated bios and working computer. Whew! I definitely didn't expect this rollercoaster of a ride when I tried updating through windows. I've learned my lesson. Flash or floppy updates when possible.
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Oh my...
- Thread starter crazjayz
- Start date
shadow_419
Gawd
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Good to hear it's alive again.
crazjayz I have exactly the same problem. I'm getting hold a floppy drive. Did you make a bootable diskette then put the BIOS and flashing utility on? Or did you just include the BIOS file and flashing utility on a blank floppy disk (didn't make it bootable)?
I just put the bios file and the flashing utility on a blank floppy. I didn't need to make it bootable for it to work. Best of luck!
BinarySynapse
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One thing to keep in mind is that his motherboard had a "CrashFree" bios. If your motherboard manufacturer doesn't implement a similar feature, then you'll have to do things differently.
Thanks - both of you - it is a crashfree BIOS 
I've made 3 floppy disks, plain boot diskette, boot diskette and bios and flashing utility, and one with just the bios and the utility. I had to do this on my friends computer so when I get hold of the floppy drive I can start straight away.
Strangely, this isn't my computer but the owner (Sister's Partner) claims he didn't flash the BIOS. Is this possible? Or do you think he was playing PC doctor (he did mention the blue screen of death).
P.S. I had the same message as on the original post. (Award Bootblock etc..)
I've made 3 floppy disks, plain boot diskette, boot diskette and bios and flashing utility, and one with just the bios and the utility. I had to do this on my friends computer so when I get hold of the floppy drive I can start straight away.
Strangely, this isn't my computer but the owner (Sister's Partner) claims he didn't flash the BIOS. Is this possible? Or do you think he was playing PC doctor (he did mention the blue screen of death).
P.S. I had the same message as on the original post. (Award Bootblock etc..)
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I've done this over a dozen times over the years with no ill effect.
The key is being smart about it. Kill all unnecessary processes, disable anti-virus, then do the update.
Thanks - both of you - it is a crashfree BIOS
I've made 3 floppy disks, plain boot diskette, boot diskette and bios and flashing utility, and one with just the bios and the utility. I had to do this on my friends computer so when I get hold of the floppy drive I can start straight away.
Strangely, this isn't my computer but the owner (Sister's Partner) claims he didn't flash the BIOS. Is this possible? Or do you think he was playing PC doctor (he did mention the blue screen of death).
P.S. I had the same message as on the original post. (Award Bootblock etc..)
You know, strangely enough I believe it could be possible to get this WITHOUT playing PC doctor. Why? Because after I put my floppy disk with the bios and utility, and the motherboard updated, I booted into windows perfectly fine. Ran the computer for a couple days, then all of a sudden had the same problem. I have no idea why. Maybe it was a loose connection, maybe it was because the battery was dead, but I assure you I didn't try to update the bios again.
My hunch, if it's the same motherboard, the CMOS battery is dead and possibly the PC was shut off/ unplugged during boot up or something. That what was causing my SECOND bootblock incident. Try replacing the battery along with updating the bios, it's only 5 bucks anyway from Radioshack.
I replaced the CMOS battery as soon as I got the message so I hope that will do the trick for me too. It's not the same motherboard, it's an ASUS M2N4-SLI. Apparently if I had CrashFree Boot (On mobo CD) I could have done all of this without a floppy drive. The CD could not be found and I was none the wiser.
I made a CD originally with AWDFLASH.EXE and 1205.bin (BIOS file) after noticing that it was searching for something to boot from. It kicked in on this and immediately bought up AWDFLASH and found the BIOS file. The only problem was, after 20 minutes it was still blinking at me: 'Please Wait'. I did a search and found that this was a common problem but I could not find out why it was happening. I flicked along google and found this post. You had exactly the same error message as I have got now and I figured our BIOS chips may be similar in terms of the way they work in a case in which they are experiencing a corrupt BIOS.
Hopefully, your solution will work for me too!
I once received a dell 1501 inspiron laptop from the same person with a corrupt bios. I took the thing to bits and found that their BIOS chip had been soldered (I was hoping to replace it). I sent the whole system board to a man in the UK (I live in the UK) who was offering to desolder the chip, reprogram it and solder it back onto the board all for 25 GBP ($41) (p&p included). I was amazed at the quality in which he had done it. All that was left was a sticker leading to his website (on the chip).
So this isn't the worst it has been for me - hopefully.
I'm sorry to bore you with my stories
BinarySynapse
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Another thing that can cause the corrupted BIOS message is bad RAM. The CPU is instructed to transfer the packed BIOS image into RAM and decompress and verify it's intergrity (checksum), then execute it. If the location the BIOS was copied to is bad, then it'll fail the verification.
Ryan, they didn't say anything about bad ram however he did mention that he took the a stick out of the system to look at it (he's learning) but put it back in straight away. When I first got the computer I checked for blown capacitors and double checked everything was seated properly - including their ram. I wonder if it got damaged at all...
The Asus tool to update your BIOS through windows works, but not 100% of the time.
The best bet these days with modern boards is to create a bootable USB drive and do it from there. Honestly it's not worth the risk to do it through an OS environment.
I would have considered that but luckily I have contact with a guy who owns a small BIOS chip business. He has agreed to make me a chip for my board with the latest BIOS for $15
And you learn something everyday. This I did not know.