[flashrom] HELP! "...flash chip is in an unknown state"

[Stefan Tauner]

On Tue, 12 Apr 2011 07:12:16 +0200
Bernard Matthews <philoscience at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Help,
> 
> I thought I did what was right, but apparently I'm missing something.
> 
> System details:
> 
> BioStar TA785G3 v 6.1 according to the printing on the mainboard.
> 
> Athlon II X3 435.
> 
> Label on factory CMOS: 88GAP901BST.  But the date showing on boot is
> 3/31/2010.
> 
> I'm trying to replace the CMOS info because of an intermittent board
> failure that I felt I had reduced to either a processor failure or a
> board failure.
> 
> The mainboard comes with a built-in utility on F12 to flash the new
> file, but it rejects the file claiming that the BIOS ID does not
> match.
> 
> The new file came from Biostar.  I actually downloaded two copies, one
> from Taiwan, and one from USA, and diff'd them to make sure they were
> the same.
> 
> So below are the results of my attempt to flash the chip :-(.
> 
> ...
>
> So, since the erase failed, shouldn't I be okay?

you can try to verify (-v) the old image. if it verifies you should be
safe.
i have looked at the code and at least in the current version it looks
ok.
have you ever tried to use the vendor tool (not the integrated f12
thingy but dos or windows software) to flash?
i presume that a hardware protection is enabled. this is usually in the
form of a jumper near the bios chip.
in your case it is probably somewhere between the sata ports if your
boards looks like
http://www.biostar.com.tw/upload/Motherboard/b20090806_1.jpg
please consult the manual about this.
if you disable the hardware protection, flashrom should be able to
write correctly imho.
please report back anyway.
-- 
Kind regards/Mit freundlichen Grüßen, Stefan Tauner