[flashrom] Is there a sure-fire way to reset any BIOS flash image to its default, out-of-the-box state with no special equipment?

[linx255 at nym.hush.com]

Thanks for your helpful info!

My motherboard has no removable chips.  What kind of programming device would you recommend for a cutting edge Intel server board?  It's one of those 4" x 4" boards with everything compacted into one giant iCore3 chip.  I don't know that the BIOS/UEFI functionality is built into that or other non-removable ICs elsewhere on the board.  And if I get an appropriate programming device can one easily / readily learn to use it to read and write code?  I'm familiar with basic programming concepts, having worked with bash script, C, php, tcl, perl, html, et al.  No knowledge of how to adapt generic coreboot BIOS code to a specific motherboard.  Is it a matter of telling it what hardware to look for?  I imagine there may be all kinds of board-specific devices and functions that only an Intel designer or engineer would know about.  And even if I correctly port the code it seems I could still risk damaging the flash with a misstep of using the programmer—is that right?



On February 22, 2014 at 5:31 AM, "Stefan Tauner" <stefan.tauner at student.tuwien.ac.at> wrote:
>
>On Fri, 21 Feb 2014 21:47:58 -0800
>linx255 at nym.hush.com wrote:
>
>> Hi, I am seeking an answer to an apparently obscure question.  
>If I install coreboot on my BIOS (UEFI motherboard) and the 
>computer fails to boot, can I reset the BIOS flash to its default 
>image?  I've read about possibly changing jumper positions or 
>removing the BIOS battery, but I can't seem to establish if these 
>are sure-fire ways of restoring the original BIOS flash image.  
>I'd like to attempt to install coreboot on a motherboard that 
>doesn't appear to be coreboot-supported, but only if I know I can 
>completely undo this.  Is the default BIOS flash image preserved 
>somewhere on a ROM chip or can it only be restored with special 
>equipment?  I definitely do not want to end up with an unusable 
>machine.  Thanks!
>
>Hi,
>
>simple answer: no.
>The code in the flash chip does initialize the most basic 
>functions of a
>mainboard. Without it there is no way to recover.
>Also, coreboot needs to be ported to unsupported boards, it is not
>generic enough to just be written to any board and just work (this 
>is
>actually not coreboot's fault, but is a consequence of the hardware
>design of x86 computers). If your flash chip is socketed, the 
>easiest
>and cheapest way is to get a spare chip and to use hot-swapping... 
>but
>usually getting an external programmer makes more sense.
>
>-- 
>Kind regards/Mit freundlichen Grüßen, Stefan Tauner