[ale] Defective BIOS?

[Randal Jarrett]

The older bios are usually in rom/eprom, which 'should not change'.
They keep the variable settings, such as disk info, in battery backed
ram, which can get corrupted.

Newer systems keep most of the bios in flash memory so that updates can
be written to them.

I don't remember of having one of the old style systems bios go bad.

For clearing the bios settings, some systems just have a 2-pin header
that enables the battery. Other systems have a 3-pin header that not
only opens the battery circuit when the jumper is removed but shorts out
the supply line to the memory so leaving the battery disabled overnight
is not necessary.

Randy

On Fri, 2005-04-22 at 08:43 -0400, Calvin Harrigan wrote:
> Cor van Dijk wrote:
> 
> > One of my older machines has  windows  on /dev/hda and redhat on 
> > /dev/hdd. It suddenly refused to boot the /dev/hda. Will only boot 
> > redhat from a floppy. When I do "/sbin/lilo -t" it tells me
> >        "Warning: BIOS drive 0x82 may not be accessible"
> > Initially I thought it was the physical drive, so I tried 3 (three) 
> > different
> > drives on /dev/hda, all with the same result, so I am tending to 
> > believe that the problem is actually were the message says that it is, 
> > in the BIOS.
> > When I try to put the boot record on /dev/hdd I get the same message.
> > Replacing the 3 volt battery does no good (old one still had over 3 
> > volt after nine years!)
> > Curious thing is that I can mount /dev/hda from /dev/hdd just fine.
> > Does the BIOS prevent me from accessing the boot sector in /dev/hda?
> > The mobo is probably a pirated item from china, but the BIOS chip is 
> > an AWARD, and is  probably tailored to fit the mobo, might be hard to 
> > find a replacement.
> > Any pointers? What is BIOS drive 0x82? Is it actually the BIOS? Can it 
> > be fixed?
> > Thanks in advance for any help. Cor van Dijk
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Ale at ale.org
> > http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> >
> Do bios(e{s}) just up an go bad?  Wouldn't it fail checksum on boot up?  
> I would clear the bios by taking out the battery and let it sit 
> overnight(unplugged as well).  The settings might have gotten fowled 
> up.  Then set everything up from scratch again.  Given the age of the 
> board I'm not sure if it supports it, but there might be boot sector 
> protection turned on in the bios.
> 
> Calvin...
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> Ale at ale.org
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-- 

Randal Jarrett  <rsj at logix.net>
RSJ Consulting, Inc
Lawrenceville, GA
(770) 822-1096