Award Bootblock BIOS 1.0 HELP!!!

Yes if someone knows where I could put the BIOS on the hard drive, I
would really appreaciate because right now it doesn't detect it so it
can't be there even though it should maybe when I was trying to update
it corrupted the bios hidden on the hard drive because I assume that
when I update the BIOS it also updates that file right? So if anyone
has an idea of where I could copy the BIOS on my hard drive it could
fix the problem. Thanks

In article <>, Steven Saunderson
<> wrote:

> On Fri, 19 May 2006 16:35:41 +0200, "Egil Solberg" <>
> wrote:
>
> > You are seeing the "Xpress BIOS rescue" in action. The BIOS file that the
> > computer is looking for is located in a hidden area early on the disk, but
> > in your case it is probably not there.
>
> From :
> <http://www.gigabyte.de/MotherBoard/FileList/NewTech/tech_xpress3.htm>
>
> The methodology of Xpress BIOS Rescue is after BIOS post completed; a
> BIOS image is automatically duplicated and saved in the hard drive. The
> saved image is securely stored in the hard drive's hidden sector which
> is undetectable or destroyed by any utility or virus today. If any BIOS
> error occurs, the Xpress BIOS Rescue will automatically activate and
> recover the defected BIOS through the stored BIOS image in the hard
> drive. This assures motherboard failure reducing to minimum.
>
> -------
>
> I'm not sure about the technical accuracy of this description but it
> sounds like a good idea. I was thinking the boot BIOS might look for a
> copy of the BIOS file in track 0 of the disk but it looks like it
> actually wants a memdump of the BIOS instead.
>
> Does anybody here have details about this ? The 'file' couldn't be more
> than 62 sectors if it hides on track 0 so it couldn't be all the BIOS.
> If it is a loader and someone has a copy and knows where to put it on
> the disk then I have a program that could be used to write the sectors.
>
> This has become a very Gigabyte specific topic. Has the OP asked in the
> Gigabyte newsgroup ?

The ATA/ATAPI standard has the concept of "Host Protected Area"
and the "SET MAX" commands. AFAIK, that allows an arbitrarily large
area at the end of the disk to be reserved. It is possible to detect
an HPA via the "READ NATIVE MAX ADDRESS" command. I certainly
hope Gigabyte is not doing stuff like that.

You gotta admire a motherboard company, that thinks its BIOS
recovery techniques are so good, that they can solder the
chip right to the motherboard. There is a special landfill
at the dump, reserved for companies like that :-( Maybe the
idiots should ship a soldering iron in the motherboard box...

Paul

On 19 May 2006 18:30:23 -0700, wrote:

> So if anyone
> has an idea of where I could copy the BIOS on my hard drive it could
> fix the problem. Thanks

Can you check the NG <alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.gigabyte> and also
support at Gigabyte to see if anyone can help ? Paul's comment about
SET MAX ADDRESS sounds good to me so perhaps that is where the info
should live. But this would have to happen before the disk is first
partitioned so it would be a problem for people like me that use one PC
to setup a disk for another PC. Perhaps your disk was prepared like
this and if the end of the disk hasn't been reserved the BIOS could
never save itself.

Hopefully there will be some Award/Gigabyte utility that can assist
here.

--
Steven

On Sat, 20 May 2006 01:33:46 GMT, (Paul) wrote:

> You gotta admire a motherboard company, that thinks its BIOS
> recovery techniques are so good, that they can solder the
> chip right to the motherboard.

It's unbelievable isn't it. They save 10c but make the motherboard
worthless. It's doubly silly because there is room for a socket and
they use a PLCC chip anyway.

Thanks for the suggestion about the reserved disk area.

--
Steven

That's very frustrating. It's so well welded. You can't even be
bothered trying to take it off. If the BIOS on the hard drive is told
undestructible then where did it go? Something obviously hapenned to it
because the Bootblock couldn't find it. But I think the worst of all
that is that it doesn't even search for one on a floppy or a cd.
Ridiculous! I don't think I'm buying a Gigabyte ever again. It sucks
but I had to buy a new one. My choice was a similar motherboard but
much newer. Asus P4P800. Should I really pay because of their
stupidity? No choice I guess. Oh well just another 150$ in the garbage.
Thanks for your help people.

wrote:
> That's very frustrating. It's so well welded. You can't even be
> bothered trying to take it off. If the BIOS on the hard drive is told
> undestructible then where did it go? Something obviously hapenned to
> it because the Bootblock couldn't find it. But I think the worst of
> all that is that it doesn't even search for one on a floppy or a cd.
> Ridiculous! I don't think I'm buying a Gigabyte ever again. It sucks
> but I had to buy a new one. My choice was a similar motherboard but
> much newer. Asus P4P800. Should I really pay because of their
> stupidity? No choice I guess. Oh well just another 150$ in the
> garbage. Thanks for your help people.

Yes, it is a ridiculous feature by Gigabyte. Rescue has been possible for
years. With even old AMI-BIOSes, all that was needed was to stick the
machine a floppy with an amiboot.rom file on it, in case of BIOS corruption,
then wait until BIOS got automagically reflashed. Been there done that on an
old Pcchips board that got badflashed. In that case, I guess the flashchip
was somehow bad. I had to repeat over and over with different BIOS files,
until I got the one that worked (possibly a fault with the chip itself, I
had to find a file that was compatible, f.ex had a "0" where the bad cell
was).

With an Award 4.51 BIOS machine was screwed up after RAM-change. Changing
back did nothing. An ISA gfx-card gave me the bootblock message with a BIOS
ROM checksum error. I could boot a floppy with flashprog. on it. Afterwards
machine was fine.

"Xpress BIOS rescue" is a useless feature, making recovery even worse. I
would rather have free floppy access than having some prog automagically try
to reflash a file I cannot choose.

In article < om>,
wrote:

> That's very frustrating. It's so well welded. You can't even be
> bothered trying to take it off. If the BIOS on the hard drive is told
> undestructible then where did it go? Something obviously hapenned to it
> because the Bootblock couldn't find it. But I think the worst of all
> that is that it doesn't even search for one on a floppy or a cd.
> Ridiculous! I don't think I'm buying a Gigabyte ever again. It sucks
> but I had to buy a new one. My choice was a similar motherboard but
> much newer. Asus P4P800. Should I really pay because of their
> stupidity? No choice I guess. Oh well just another 150$ in the garbage.
> Thanks for your help people.

Ask in the Gigabyte group and try to use Gigabyte Tech Support if
you can. Don't give up on it, until you have researched all the
possibilities. I've tried reading the Gigabyte manuals before,
but I cannot claim to have understood what I was reading. Maybe
there is some other option we haven't thought of.

The Express Recovery here, is for restoring the OS on the hard
drive. They keep a snapshot of the OS in a hidden file. If the
OS is corrupted, they reload the OS from the hidden file. Naturally,
you have to update the snapshot at regular intervals, if you
expect to have everything put back the way you had it. Since this
is an Express3 feature, the 8ipe1000p probably doesn't have the
feature to recover the operating system files.

http://www.giga-byte.com.tw/Support/...spx?FAQID=4888

The 8ipe1000p_e manual mentions Dual BIOS, but does not address
operation of the board if only one BIOS chip is installed. Maybe
the one chip holds two BIOS images ? I've read somewhere, that
the Gigabyte Dual BIOS is not a true dual BIOS - it is one boot
block and two main BIOS images. The boot block should never be
updated, if that is the case. But it would appear, in my research
below, that the boot block in these BIOS files is being changed,
and doing that to a motherboard with only one BIOS chip soldered
to the motherboard, is stupid.

******************
Download F12 2005/08/22
Update CPU microcode

Download F11 2004/09/09
Fixed 0F41 CPU can't boot issue

Download F10 2004/08/11
Support Intel Celeron-D CPU (Notice: Please refer to CPU support
status and motherboard version)

Download F9 2004/03/05 Update Micro code

Download F8 2003/12/25
Update CPUID 0F33h micro code to 07h
Fixed Install NT4.0 Fail with Prescott CPU

Download F7 2003/07/14
Support BIOS auto-rescue function <---- Yikes! Added after release?

Download F6 2003/05/15 MP Release
*******************

I downloaded the F8 BIOS, and loaded it into a hex editor.
I see the text string in the Boot Block area:

BIOS Auto-Recovering .Scanning BIOS Image in Hard Drive
Unknown Flash Memory

and then further down, very near the end of the 256KB file:

Drive A error. System halt
Can not Find BIOS Image in Hard Drive or Diskette !
BIOS ROM checksum error
Keyboard controller error
Keyboard error or no keyboard present
Detecting floppy drive A media...
Drive media is : 1.44Mb 1.2Mb 720Kb 360Kb

In the F12 BIOS

BIOS Auto-Recovering .Scanning BIOS Image in Hard Drive
Unknown Flash Memory

and then further down, very near the end of the 256KB file:

Drive A error. System halt
Can not Find BIOS Image in Hard Drive ! <---- Uh oh!
BIOS ROM checksum error
Keyboard controller error
Keyboard error or no keyboard present
Detecting floppy drive A media...
Drive media is : 1.44Mb 1.2Mb 720Kb 360Kb

I guess one of the Gigabyte "improvements" may have
been to stop using the floppy ? It looks like the F8
BIOS may have searched the floppy, but the message
in the F12 BIOS suggests they stopped using the floppy.

In the F6 BIOS, the one without "auto-rescue", there
is only one chunk of text strings.

Drive A error. System halt
DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER
BIOS ROM checksum error
Keyboard controller error
Keyboard error or no keyboard present
Detecting floppy drive A media...
Drive media is : 1.44Mb 1.2Mb 720Kb 360Kb

It would appear that the F8 BIOS had the most intelligent
error messages. The F12 only claims to search the
hard drive. And I cannot tell from that, whether it looked
in the root level of the first partition, or whether it
looks in all partitions, or it uses an HPA area. 256KB of
storage area, or thereabouts, would be required. That is
512 sectors.

Maybe you would need to scan the hard drive sector by
sector, looking for "Award BootBlock BIOS" on the disk.

It occurs to me, if you were upgrading from F6 BIOS (where
the F6 BIOS would not have prepared a recovery image on
the hard drive), to a later BIOS like F12, the F12 boot
block will not be able to find a BIOS image on the
hard drive (because F6 didn't put it there), but if the
F12 BIOS no longer looks at the floppy, you're screwed.
It could be you got "caught in the middle of Giga-byte
innovation", so to speak.

it would seem, in hindsight, that F6 --> F8 --> F12
update sequence would have left you with more recovery
options, than F6 --> F12. But in any case, a BIOS soldered
to a motherboard is lunacy.

Paul

Same error on my gigabite board . After switching ram with no results tryed one single stick of ram and got the one beep and windows was installing!!!! My board isn't same make but bios sounds much like . Heard of problems getting ram to be accepted initially and one stick or the other might do it for you , gotta go cause windows is installed and much more to do before I sleep ,good luck

I had this same problem and it turned out it was a memory problem. What I did was I cleared the CMOS by taking the battery out and putting it back and then I removed all memory sticks (4 x 1024Mb) and I moved them around one by one until it booted up, it booted up normal with one or two sticks but I needed all 4. It was just this one stick that would make this happen and it was when I put that stick in the 3rd slot, once I moved it all was fine.

Hope this helps I know its an old post but I just came across it on google.

Soorena

Quote:

solved bios recovery on GIGBYTE ga-8ipe1000 rev1.0

if you have sata hdd the bios is still inside the hdd.
bye or find a ide converter to sata and connect sata hdd to adapter( i used ritmo ide ->stata converter) and start the pc. when is done restart and is ready.