Thanks for the reply, I used Flashrom as the utility and am quite comfortable using Linux and the command line. I got shot of my virally infected copy of Win98 sometime ago, I have my hard drive with Fedora 9 on my friends PC, it has the Flashrom utility and my backup.bin. It also has the same type of bios chip (PLCC), And its socketed!
My bios chip is a PLCC (not socketed unfortunately) and the info on the chip is;
Winbond W39V040AP 240515401 415GGAA
I've thought about unsoldering the chip but don't really have the proper tools. I could do it though, it will take ages because I'll have to take it real slow so and find something to use to take the heat away from the chip so I don't fry it, but I'm very patient and I think could do it (getting it back on might be a bit more problematic).
My thought was to purchase another chip and 'kind of' place it on top of the other chip, but I'm not sure how this would go? I'd hope it would be a little like hot flashing, and the good chip would be recognized by the CPU and I could boot-up. It would then be a case of removing the new chip (making sure the bios is set to cashable first) and refashing with my backup.bin. But I don't know the 'bad' chip could interfere with it booting and cause it not to work. Another thought is this computer has something in the bios about 'booting' 'rom' and 'lan' I haven't fully looked into it yet, but if its what I think it is, its something to do with booting over a network, is it possible to do this with a CPU that has no bios?
I'm open and confident in trying all suggestions, and I love to learn.
Thank you
--- On Thu, 11/6/09, Carl-Daniel Hailfinger c-d.hailfinger.devel.2006@gmx.net wrote:
From: Carl-Daniel Hailfinger c-d.hailfinger.devel.2006@gmx.net Subject: Re: [coreboot] Hosed ms-7032, I foolishly flashed the bios with a .700 To: "Phil Neary" philneary@yahoo.co.uk Cc: coreboot@coreboot.org Date: Thursday, 11 June, 2009, 10:20 AM Hi Phil,
On 11.06.2009 11:49, Phil Neary wrote:
Hi all, I'm not really sure how this works, I'm
guessing its a bit similar to a forum, but in lieu of creating threads and posting posts, you email instead?
Correct. Please make sure to use the "reply to all" button in your mailer. That will ensure the individual developers and the list see your mails.
[...] I messed up when flashing my bios and flashed it
with A7032VMS.700 instead of a .rom or a .bin.
Which application did you use for reflashing? In theory, the A7032VMS.700 may just be a renamed .bin file.
[...] I tried the AMIBOOT.ROM recovery with the .700
and a few other bios' for my board [...], but they haven't worked.[...] I was able to get the backup.bin from my hard drive
Actually, the backup.bin may be key to reviving your board.
and tried renaming it AMIBOOT.ROM and saving it to
floppy, but Fedora named it amiboot.rom[...]. Does Amiboot have to be capitalized?
AFAIK DOS doesn't care about name capitalization.
Is there anything I haven't tried yet?
It all depends on how adventurous you feel. Can you try to locate the ROM chip on your board and peel off the sticker? It might look similar to this: http://www.coreboot.org/File:Plcc32_chip.jpg and it is probably in a socket. Write down all text you see on the chip (not the sticker) and mail it to us. Then we can tell you which chips are compatible and how to recover. One way to recover is to hotflash the chip in another board with compatible flash bus (sounds complicated, but once we know the chip model, we can tell you which boards are compatible). That would save you the hassle of buying a new chip.
I can get a replacement chip for a fiver, but before I
do I'd like to find out if that will defiantly work?
It should work, but it's not guaranteed. Ah yes, and there is the risk that your onboard network won't work anymore if you buy a preflashed chip because sometimes the old chip stores the MAC address of your onboard network card.
How experienced are you with Linux or *BSD? Our emergency recovery tools don't work under Windows (well, very old versions of our tools work under Windows).
Regards, Carl-Daniel