BIOS Recovery Guide- Page 2/3
July 18, 2001
By
Robert Richmond
Video-enabled Recovery
Assuming an ISA slot is available, then the least complex method for BIOS recovery is possible through the usage of a now outdated ISA video card. Remove all peripherals and devices except the ISA video, floppy, and keyboard. Now proceed to boot as normal from the startup floppy disk. Be sure to bypass any startup routines included with the disk by booting to just the standard safe-mode command prompt. Usually this can be accomplished by pressing CTRL or F8 during the boot process.
Once at the comment prompt, just follow the exact update procedure as outlined by the vendor upgrade guide to restore the original working BIOS that was saved during the faulty flash. If the backup is not available, then be sure to download the latest specific BIOS update directly from the motherboard manufacturer site.
Automatic Recovery
Even if an ISA slot or video card is not available, then BIOS recovery is usually still a good possibility. To utilize this process, the startup disk must be edited to auto-load the BIOS flash utility at boot time. After using Windows to build the boot disk, it is recommended to delete or rename both the config.sys and autoexec.bat files found in the disk's primary directory path. This insures no additional programs are loaded which could interfere with the operation of the BIOS flash application.
As with the previous technique, all BIOS files and utilities must be copied to the startup disk. A custom autoexec.bat file now must be created to load the BIOS utility at boot time. Using a raw text editor, such as Notepad, the proper BIOS utility command line must be entered as specified in the manufacturer BIOS upgrade process. Be sure to save the file with the proper .bat extension, not the .txt extension as often defined be most text editors.
Events
Assuming an ISA slot is available, then the least complex method for BIOS recovery is possible through the usage of a now outdated ISA video card. Remove all peripherals and devices except the ISA video, floppy, and keyboard. Now proceed to boot as normal from the startup floppy disk. Be sure to bypass any startup routines included with the disk by booting to just the standard safe-mode command prompt. Usually this can be accomplished by pressing CTRL or F8 during the boot process. 
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