updating Bios Problem..

[Jarod888]

I am trying to fix my friends computer. It is very old, he wants it for work. Anyways i can get an os installed but it is very hard, i had to start from scratch with a dos 6.22 disk and then to 98 and then upgrade to 2000, I tried to talk him out of it but he needs file level protection, hense ntsf.. after i got 98 installed i put in the win 2k cd. it wont boot, the computer's bios is so old that cd rom isnt a valid booting option.. Anyways I brosed the cd, and started the install from 98. the problem is that it installed 2000 advanced server.. Well every thing is good except it now has both operating systems, 982e and 2000 as, i cnat find a valid video driver. So i decided to upgrade the bios, see if it would allow me to boot from a cd then. So i looked up the bios, american megatrends and down loaded thier Bios flash utility. Now since it has to be run in raw mode i decide to pop out the hd w/ 2k on it and put in anther, i had to use a 98 boot disk to get it up.. I have not installed an os as of yet, when i poped out the boot disk and put in the bios flash disk and ran the com file from the a: it poped up a bright green screen that says flash not supported.. well there are to ultilities that come in the rar file from ami so i tried the other, an exe. it gives me this message: Error 18 Chipset/Flash part isnt available. The function will be invalid.
so my question is, what the hell is going on?? I thought all bios was flashable, or at least upgradeable....

anyways you will all probably want the important specs: P1 166, 801920k of memory, and 4 gig hd. the bios is 1.00.11.BSOT

[unicorn]

Upgrading is the process done called flashing, ie it's a circuit that can be programmed electrically.
Not all chips are programmable this way.

Why not stick to win98 and then use a utility for encrypting sensitive files? Ask him if that is a solution he can live with?

[Jarod888]

i will see. thank you.

[kamikazee]

Also, check the bios, see if you have to enable bios flashing, I have an ASUS that has to be set to enabled to flash the bios.

But all bios's are not flashable, especially the older computers.

[jtk]

I would Format C: and start again.windows 2000 can work ok on this pc Pentium 166 mhz, you need a boot disc from win98 with cd rom drivers and smartdrv.exe,
after format c: boot with win98 start disc to a: type smartdrv enter, then go to your cd with windows 2000 in it eks. d:\cd i386\winnt enter, you can choose ntfs later in this install.
hope this will help.jtk

[BearCat]

First off :
You _must_ identify the make/model of the mobo,
and download the bios for it from the producer.

AMI is only making the "basic" of the BIOS, then the manufacturer
adds mainboard spesific options/settings.

In the bootscreen, you will see some numbers and a date in the
lower part of the screen, enter that info into our friend Google,
and it will help you in identifying the make/model of the mobo.

[areia]

Older boards have jumpers to prevent bioses from being erased, have you checked?