BIOS (AWARD) Upgrade How TO?

[Chuckiechan]

What a mess. I said not to use Q Flash. Now that you did, I think you corrupted your bios. You'll need to send your board back to Gigabyte. Since your floppy is dead there is no way in.

Do you have a third computer? If you do, leave the bios alone and hook the hdd up to it as a slave Go to the hdd mfg's website and download a testing utility, and a format or set up utility. Test the Hdd to make sure it is ok, the format and partition it that way.

I think your formatting is stalling due to bad memory, which means your installation will probably stall also. Gigabyte is funny that way. Try some other memory - one stick will do.

[olepap]

I am not sure that I ever really used Q Flash. Not that I didn't try. But apparently the A-Drive was not working. That may have saved my arse. or at least my BIOS.
I think I did the Q Flash before I read your post. But am not certain about that.

Or are you saying the attempts may have fried the A-Drive floppy?

I removed the power supply (4 pin) from the floppy and now the computer starts up.
Tried the other power (4 pin) and same problem.
But no cigar on a boot up. Same error about operating system.

How do I clear the CMOS? And what might that do for me?
Prob wont return mobd to Gigabyte. I can find no support info for doing so.
Guess I'll just start over if I must. I really like the case, opticals and I thought I liked Gigabyte.
Actually I despise the whole damm circumstanse. Just must have one of these damm things.

[Chuckiechan]

What is the message you are getting? Is the bios "posting"? As in reading your memory, and things prior to getting to the "no operating" message?

Do you have an operating system on your hard drive?

Can you get into bios?

If you can't then reset it - refer to your instructions.

[olepap]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuckiechan

What is the message you are getting?
Message says something like " Error Loading Operating System"

Is the bios "posting"? As in reading your memory, and things prior to getting to the "no operating" message? Well, yes, It has to post for me to get to the error message doesn't it? It then shows the contents of the puter. However it shows the A-Drive there even when I disconnect the power to that drive.

Do you have an operating system on your hard drive?
NO, unless the few minutes of setup before the format of HD freeze would be considered OS on the Harddrive..??

Can you get into bios?
Yes.

If you can't then reset it - refer to your instructions.
You are the closest thing to instructions I have..i.e. NO INSTRUCTIONS with OS but I do have the MoBoard booklet.

BTW I do not have a 3rd puter. But my wife can bring home her laptop. cannot install the HdDrive in it tho.
My temp puter is OS=Win98SE and I am not sure what would happen if I slaved a 160 Gig HD to its 10 (ten) Gigger. Also the formatting is Fat not the NS?? that I tried to format the 160 into.

[Chuckiechan]

You have a buttload of small issues.

The BIOS is ok. It may not be set right, but it is ok.

Go into bios - the first screen should show your hdd's - they should all show up. If one doesen't, it's "not there". Arrow down to "show" your hdd, then press "enter". It should give details on your hdd - write down those details.

Next, check each "page" in bios until you come to "boot order" - make first boot your floppy, second boot your hdd, third boot your CD rom.

If I understand correctly, you are using the big Hdd as a new replacement of the old 10 gig? If you are using two hdd's you need to set the jumpers on the back of each Hdd to "CS" for Cable Select if they are on the same data cable.

Google the "details" on your hdd using the wife's computer, and find a "set up" disk from your hdd mfg, and use it for "test", and then "format" it. Since it's so big, and you are using Win98, I'd "partition" it into three partitions.

While all of this booting and rebooting is going on, watch the screen and see if you see the term "boot menu" - some use "esc", some use "F8", etc. It's a nice shortcut if your board has the ability.

After all of this, and you are formatted. Put in the Win98 disk and choose "boot from CD rom" and it should install.

[olepap]

Chuckie you are a bit confused.The temp computer is not the prob here on this thread.The temp computer has the 10 Gig HdD.I just installed XP over the Win98se on the temp. But the temp is not my concern here. I will upgrade it later with larger HdD and more RAM. The Gigabyte MoBd computer is the one I am trying to fix.It has NO OS yet.It has the NEW 160 Gig HdD.It is the only HdD in the Gigabyte MB computer.I have ordered a new A-Drive (internal) and a new Corsair Ram Stick (512)3200The Hard Drive is a western digital that was white labeled by some reseller company. Is removing the battery for a few hours the way to clear the CMOS?Is there any harm in trying that to get rid of the error message at the end of the POST page 2 which is blocking me from Booting and retrying to install OS (XP-PRO).Stay with me on this mess, Maybe we are making some progress. I will finalize the odyssy here win or lose.[quote=Chuckiechan;2791897]You have a buttload of small issues for sure.

[Chuckiechan]

First, before you go to all this trouble, it probably hung due to memory. So put in your new memory, put in the XP cd, and boot from the cd and you should be ok. That's the way things are supposed to work.

Make sure your memory is approved by Gigabyte - it's a fussy board.

If you still have problems, go to the Western Digital site and download a formatting utility, and a Hdd fitness testing utility just for kicks. Both run on floppies. The CD version never worked well for me. Run the HDD test first, and if your Hdd passes, then do the formatting with the Western Digital floppy. It only takes a few seconds, as I remember, and you can partition and get all of your 160 gigs minus a few gigs "overhead" used by the NTFS file system.

Let get running before you worry about the BIOS.

Usually near the battery is a set of three pins with a jumper covering two pins. It may be marked on the board as "clear cmos" or just "cmos". The pins are side by side. For example if pin one and two are covered, move the little plastic jumper to pin two and three for a couple of seconds, then move it back where it was. That's all there is to it.

[Chuckiechan]

Update?

[olepap]

Just recieved all the needed parts & supplies, I hope. Gonna go for it tween now and Thanksgiving.
Even aquired one of those wrist straps but don't really know how it can work.

Wish me luck. I will as said report result.

[olepap]

Well No cigar.

New Ram Stick Installed.
also new floppy drive.

Only noticeable difference was a message on the first POST/BIOS screen that said
"CMOS Checksum error Defaults loaded"

Then if I continued (by pushing "enter" the screen paged to the same final message which was "Error Loading Operating System__"

I put in the OS setup to see if it would boot the system further...nope.
I changed the boot sequence from Floppy, 0HDr, CD to CD, OHDr, Floppy. I thought this was gonna do it but alas NOPE. Same ending.."Error Loading Operating System__"


I checked to see about clearing CMOS and the board has no jumper over pins but instead just 3 little spots there. One spot is within a white square the other two alongside that one are in "clear" squares".
So I removed the battery. It is still removed.
I will replace it and see what happens. I've just about had it.

Put battery back in.
"CMOS Checksum error Defaults loaded" still showing.
Reset date in the CMOS.
Reset boot sequence to CD, OHDr, Floppy.
Eureka it booted on the setup disc.
Setup failed though.
Apparently the HDdrive is corrupt or the BIOS just cannot handle the larger HDdrive.
At least this time when it would not finish formatting it gave me some info and an exit strategy. Had lots of other data too which I copied down by hand for some dumb reason.

I have backed out and removed the HDdrive. I will either replace it with a smaller (120 gig) or test it or both.
I hesitate to put it into my Temp Puter though. Even as a slave I fear it might F-up the Temp.
But of course I'll have to install it to check it out wont I?
I am just about geeked out. The re-labeler was Magnetic Data Tecnologies (mdtglobal.com). My next stop.