flashing bios

**Shard92** · December 31st, 2002, 03:03 PM

I need to flash the bios on a Asus P2l97 motherboard. It has award bios. i went to asus website and was able to find the bios file but not a flash utility. Anyone know what I need and where to get it? I've only flashed a bios once before and and had all kinds of difficulties but a customer wants a large hd on his machine and the bios doesn't support it soo.... Can anyone help? are the flash utilities proprietary to the board manufacturer or just the bios writer? Help please

**NooNoo** · December 31st, 2002, 03:20 PM

here is what asus recommends you do

**Shard92** · January 2nd, 2003, 12:46 PM

Thanks noo that was the program I needed. I guess you are just better at searching than i am.

I tried flashing but the flash utility says that it is an unknown type and won't flash it. Thanks anyway though

**MacGyver** · January 2nd, 2003, 01:02 PM

-What- is an unknown type? BIOS, motherboard, ??? Had one of these boards a while ago and I never had any problems flashing it.

**Shard92** · January 2nd, 2003, 01:44 PM

I think it was the flash type that it listed as unknown. In the manual for the motherboard it says a message like that means the bios is not flashable.

Yes I just checked the book it was flash type that was listed as unknown. It saw the bios version that was there and the one I was going to flash too but the Flash type was listed as unknown.

**MacGyver** · January 2nd, 2003, 01:56 PM

That's frustrating, BIOS 1009 does indeed support IDE disks larger than 32Gig.

It's possible that that particular board does not have a flash rom BIOS chip.

When you are trying to apply this BIOS update, I'm assuming you are booting using a clean Win9x boot disk and you are not running anything else?

**Shard92** · January 2nd, 2003, 02:32 PM

Correct.

The bios number on the machine now is 1008. The bios I downloaded ( that the site said i needed to be able to support large drives) was 1010.

The documentation I have says that the error message i got ( flash type unknown ) means it's not a flashable bios. I thought maybe there was a jumper but I can't find it if there is one.

**MacGyver** · January 2nd, 2003, 02:53 PM

Wait a sec, Shard. I know for a fact that the final BIOS issued for that board was 1009. I don't know where you got 1010 from, but I can assure you that it's not the right BIOS for the P2L97. Try this one instead:

http://www.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/slot...7/lx2i1009.zip

**Shard92** · January 2nd, 2003, 03:03 PM

Thanks Mac, I'll give it a try. The reason the customer wanted it flashed was for over 65 gb support ( 80 gb ) hd. I just found the alternate setting for the WD drive and will probably install it with an overlay if this doesn't work. By the way I got the bios 1010 from Asus. It was on there page in the faqs section. It said to be able to use drives larger than 65 gb download this bios and linked to the one I have said. IF I have time later I'll see if I can find it again and post you a link.

As always much thanks Mac.

**Garak** · January 2nd, 2003, 09:33 PM

The reason you get unknown flash type is usually due to the flash program being newer than the chipset / flash IC (I learned from Ruslan, just hope I remembered it correctly) What flash program are you using, I tend to use AMIflash at the minute, although Aflash by ASUS would probably suit the job better. Also, best checking the board and BIOS setting for "protect against Flash upgrade" as I have seen that cause the same problem also.

Hope this information helps you out. Let's here how you get on.

**Ruslan** · January 3rd, 2003, 09:24 AM

Originally posted by Garak
The reason you get unknown flash type is usually due to the flash program being newer than the chipset / flash IC (I learned from Ruslan, just hope I remembered it correctly)

Good student!

Yeah, it is true - most likely just only you were using older version of aflash... Use the latest one to be sure... If the problem persist - then it could be bad chip itself...

About version 1010 - it is official beta version for this board...
I had been using the latest beta versions (1010.04,1010.09 and then 1010.10) for my two ASUS P2L-97 boards without any problems for few years. This latest version does support drives over 40 Gig and Mendocino Celerons up to 533Mhz.

This version of the BIOS and the latest flash utility (2.21) can be downloaded from German ASUS FTP site: www.asuscom.de ,
ftp://ftp.asuscom.de/pub/ASUSCOM/

Since I found this site, I do not use Taiwanese ASUS site anymore...

**Shard92** · January 3rd, 2003, 11:53 AM

I got both the bios and the flash utility off of asus's website. The flash utility was from the link provided by NooNoo. Garak I thought of that too and checked. The utility did backup the current bios but wouldn't upgrade to the newer version. Anyway I did solve the problem he had and it's a done deal so it's out of my hands now. i appreciate the info though. I haven't done much flashing and have had difficulties every time I have.... So I'm not always thrilled to do them.

**CeeBee** · January 3rd, 2003, 12:33 PM

Originally posted by Shard92
Thanks noo that was the program I needed. I guess you are just better at searching than i am.

I tried flashing but the flash utility says that it is an unknown type and won't flash it. Thanks anyway though

Check for a FLASH PROTECT setting in BIOS settings, or even for a FLASH ENABLE/DISABLE jumper on the motherboard. When flash is disabled you get that "unknown" message.

**MacGyver** · January 3rd, 2003, 12:52 PM

Originally posted by CeeBee
Check for a FLASH PROTECT setting in BIOS settings, or even for a FLASH ENABLE/DISABLE jumper on the motherboard. When flash is disabled you get that "unknown" message.

I know for a fact that the Asus P2L97 doesn't have such a jumper.