[flashrom] ASUS P5GC: BIOS erased after after `flashrom -r`f (was: a serious problem to solve)

[Paul Menzel]

Dear Henry,


Am Freitag, den 08.02.2013, 21:41 +0100 schrieb Henry Blanco Lores:
> Hello guys, I have subscribed to this mailing list looking for some help
> about the use of the flashrom tool.
> The problem is this:
> 
> A friend of mine who has just started using Linux, was testing some tools
> and not reading carefully their corresponding manuals, he executed this
> command: flashrom -r

normally that should not cause any problems as it just tries to read the
flash chip content. flashrom is very careful to not break anything, so
it is very unlikely that the problem was caused by this command.

> and this seems to have erased the BIOS of his PC. This is my guess because
> he just told me by phone that not even the video signal was working.

You have to be very specific.

1. What Linux distribution did your friend use? What version of
flashrom? The packaged one?

2. What did your friend exactly do? Did he see any error messages from
flashrom. I guess he just shut the system down?

> His motherboard is an ASUS P5GC.

A similar board seems to be supported [1]. So the problem is even
stranger.

> Is it possible to recover the BIOS back to the previous state??

If it was really deleted/erased or a bad image was flashed, then you
have to reprogram the chip either with a flash chip programmer. One way
is to find a motherboard where the chip fits and reprogram it there by
hot swapping it. If that is not possible ask around in your local hacker
community or find a shop which does it.

> Please, I will be looking forward for your comments.

I wish you good luck with recovery! You should also join the #flashrom
IRC channel on irc.freenode.net.


Thanks,

Paul


[1] http://flashrom.org/Supported_hardware
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