cross flashing bios

**naka-pako** · September 15th, 2004, 10:00 PM

Anyone suggest/know of a site about cross-flashing bios? AMI to AWARD.

thanks....d

**Garak** · September 16th, 2004, 02:34 AM

I've done this several times, and I know from talking to Ruslan that he has done also. You can use AMIFlash to do this, by turning off certain features *digs out AMIflash*

See screendump for settings or in AMIflash terms "Flags".

(And who said Print SCRN wasn't useful :P) (yup i copied and pasted a previous post.... by myselfd though

)

any problems or questions, feel free to ask.

oh, and make sure that you clear the cmos settings after you reboot.

**naka-pako** · September 16th, 2004, 01:00 PM

Hi Garak,
Thank you very much. So I use the AMI flash utility, set the flags and specify the Award flash file (.bin)?

thanks again....d

**Ruslan** · September 16th, 2004, 08:47 PM

Be careful!
If that BIOS file is not written for your particular motherboard model, you can finish with MB won't boot at all... or some of COM/LPT ports will not work - BIOS is I/O chip dependable...
Cross-BIOSes were actually made for some of PCPartner motherboards, but far not every MB manufacturer did the same...

**naka-pako** · September 17th, 2004, 09:37 AM

Originally Posted by Ruslan

Be careful!
If that BIOS file is not written for your particular motherboard model, you can finish with MB won't boot at all... or some of COM/LPT ports will not work - BIOS is I/O chip dependable...
Cross-BIOSes were actually made for some of PCPartner motherboards, but far not every MB manufacturer did the same...

Hi Ruslan,
Thank you for the warning. The board I have is a K7T pro (MSI 6330 2.1 - Gateway OEM). I wanted to flash it with the bios from the MSI site but it's an Award bios and this board has an AMI bios. I just saw a similar post in the forum about the same board. So you don't think it's safe to do this?

thanks....d

**Ruslan** · September 17th, 2004, 10:49 PM

Originally Posted by naka-pako

Hi Ruslan,
Thank you for the warning. The board I have is a K7T pro (MSI 6330 2.1 - Gateway OEM). I wanted to flash it with the bios from the MSI site but it's an Award bios and this board has an AMI bios. I just saw a similar post in the forum about the same board. So you don't think it's safe to do this?

thanks....d

But why you need to change the BIOS?
Even small difference in hardware (made for specific OEM) can cause new BIOS will be not compatible with MB... Unfortunately, sometimes it happens...
If for some reasons you'll be unable to re-flash boot block it can cause an old boot block will be not compatible with new AWARD update... Some of OEM vendors are intentionally making that boot-block unerasable (HP/Compaq, for example). Although chip itself can be re-programmed using stand-alone programmer or MB from another manufacturer, it may be impossible to do using original motherboard because some parts of BIOS chip are hardware - protected...
I would recommend to try to flash another (spare) chip, if possible... Better to be safe than sorry...

**naka-pako** · September 18th, 2004, 09:45 AM

Originally Posted by Ruslan

But why you need to change the BIOS?
Even small difference in hardware (made for specific OEM) can cause new BIOS will be not compatible with MB... Unfortunately, sometimes it happens...
If for some reasons you'll be unable to re-flash boot block it can cause an old boot block will be not compatible with new AWARD update... Some of OEM vendors are intentionally making that boot-block unerasable (HP/Compaq, for example). Although chip itself can be re-programmed using stand-alone programmer or MB from another manufacturer, it may be impossible to do using original motherboard because some parts of BIOS chip are hardware - protected...
I would recommend to try to flash another (spare) chip, if possible... Better to be safe than sorry...

Thank you. I will certainly take all your suggestions into consideration. I really just wanted to know if it's possible to cross flash. The bios updates from MSI has more options (possibility of changing FSB) than the Gateway bios.

thank you all......d

**Garak** · September 19th, 2004, 02:22 AM

Originally Posted by Ruslan

Be careful!
If that BIOS file is not written for your particular motherboard model, you can finish with MB won't boot at all... or some of COM/LPT ports will not work - BIOS is I/O chip dependable...
Cross-BIOSes were actually made for some of PCPartner motherboards, but far not every MB manufacturer did the same...

My Bad, should have mentioned that. Sorry.