[ale] [ALE] Hardware issues w/Linux

[Michael B. Trausch]

On Mar 5, 2011, at 9:17 PM, Scott Castaline wrote:

> It's now bricked. The debug LED panel is sitting there flashin FF insync with the HDD LED. I guess the FF means I'm f**ked x 2. As far as method of flashing, I went through the BIOS utility like I've always done on other boards, ever since BIOS mfgs started including that capability. It did have a problem saving the original BIOS, that should have been my warning that something wasn't right. Never been an issue before, read about it from others moaning that they just bricked their (fill in your device of evil ie: MoBo, router, DVD player), but that had never happened to me. Got some readin' to do and more searching using wifey's M$ (shudder, shudder) laptop.

It probably isn't (totally) bricked.  Many modern motherboards have a means to trigger an emergency flash.  However, that typically requires a PS/2 keyboard, a magic key combination, and a working floppy drive (e.g., one that is attached to the FDC, not one that is attached to the USB bus).  I have a working USB floppy, but not a normal FDC-connected one.

You might want to try to see if your board supports such a failsafe/fallback mechanism.

Can you get into the BIOS' setup program at all at this point?

	--- Mike