23 replies to this topic

[rokytnji]

Ok, I am trying to upgrade a Award Bios Version 4 to Version 8. I Contacted Amrel Support and Bonnie Zheng set me the Zip File via email. I loaded the zip file on USB for starters since I use Linux. I went to the Wifes XP laptop and Downloaded Bootdisk.com Driver Free Disk For BIOS Flashing. I ran the exec and made the Floppy bootable for DOS. I Unzipped the zipped file for Bios, and sent the 2 files in the unzipped file to the floppy. I booted up the floppy and at A> I type in "dir"

I end up with 4 files showing
1. COMMAND
2. I forget but its for resetting to A>
3 AWDFLASH EXE
4. RT686 829

So at A> I type in "AWARDFLASH EXE RT686.829 " and hit enter

Takes me to a screen and asks at bottom of screen do I wish to save old bios. I say yes and A section in the Window asks Which file to save. I hit 829 and enter and I get the loading bars underneath like when the bios is being changed because I've seen this before when upgrading my IBM M41 bios. Anyhows, I get a flashing error at bottom of page window telling me it can't find Source Code File. Lucky me I haven't trashed old bios. I pull the floppy and reboot into bios, and its the same old bios, not the new one.

I know the differences between the old one I have and the new one I wish to upgrade to. The old one on boot options is A/CD/C .

The new Bios has the capability of booting with USB CDROM,USB FLOPPY,USB ZIP, USB Hardrive beside A/CD/C.

I thought I got all the right tools and was doing it right, So guys, Where the heck am I screwing up at?

[rokytnji]

These are my emails from Amrel and trying Bonnies suggested command did'nt even get recognized.

RT686 is a very old of model. It will allow certain USB devices, like USB FDD, USB CDROM, USB HDD and USB zip, to boot up, but I am not sure it will meet your needs or not.

Attached please find "newest" system BIOS. The command to flash BIOS is Awardflash RT686.829 CC/CD/CP. Please be very careful, any interrupt in the middle of flash may end with a dead unit.

PS. Our new product support Linex but RT686 support Windows only.

If you need more information, please let us know

Best wishes,
Bonnie

Hello again Bonnie. I am trying to install The Bios update. I have
installed the zip file and extracted it to my usb drive which is Drive
E. running in Windows 2000 Pro. I went to Start>Run and entered the
command you gave me: The command to flash BIOS is Awardflash RT686.829
CC/CD/CP. But it doesn't find the file path. It might be because it is
on the USB Stick instead of a CD. So I opened the awdflash application
and A Quick Window opened up for just a second then closed. I hope I am
right that this is a exe. file that flashes bios within Windows 2000
while it is running. I then went into properties of awdflash.exe and ran
the Command Line listed in the Properties menu and agin got the quick
screen and then it was gone. Can you tell me if I am doing this right or
not. When I flashed the bios on my IBM Desktop I used a bootable floppy
to do it. Since this file is labeled exe, I am assumming it is done in
Windows. I am leaving the Amrel Laptop Powered up till I can get an
answer. Thanks for your time again and help.

Sorry I did not tell you the steps to flash your BIOS - you need make a bootable Floppy Disk and do like you did for your IBM desktop - Make a bootable Floppy Disk and extract both Awdflash file and RT686.829 file to the Floppy disk. Then boot up from that Floppy disk and flash the BIOS - Flashing BIOS in a DOS environment.

PS. You should be ok to turn off the power as long as it is not in middle of flash.

Best wishes,
Bonnie

[Smokey]

rokytnji,

First of all, forget trying to EVER flash bios using a usb port on older computers. USB drivers are housed in the operating system and you are in dos while flashing not in the operating system. The usb ports are not active until it's booting.

Note: There are programs that allow you to setup the flash in while booted to windows but the actual flash is always done in dos or pre-boot. Using the floppy method os still the best way to flash in my opinion.

Next, make your own boot floppy. If you only show 4 files (using the dir command) on that floppy that you created, it's not a completed boot disk.
Insert a floppy in the drive of your wifes windows based computer. Open "my computer" >> right click on the floppy drive and select format. When the next window opens check the box next to "create a ms startup disk and press start. [attachment=53678:attachment]

After it completes in about 1 minute you can extract the 2 files for the flash to the new boot floppy.

Now you are ready to flash but this time when you are asked for the bios file, just type in the bios file not the flash utility exe file.
Note: If this command does not work then go back and add the flash utility in the command line like you did before. If they gave you specific instructions on the command line, listen to them and ignore what I just posted.

[rokytnji]

First of all, Merry Christmas Smokey. Thanks for listening. I wasn't trying to flash it with the USB. Thats just where I saved the email attachment to. I had formatted a 1.44 floppy disk and made it bootable using the link from Bootdisk.com http://www.bootdisk.com/ And I selected the 3rd down from the list.I then opened the downloaded file . It said insert formatted floppy disk, which I did, and it wrote to the floppy to make it bootable.

I unzipped the zipped file and extracted 1 file. Labled: BIOS 829. I opened that file and inside were
1. awdflash (type: application, Size: 29.9 KB)
2. RT686.829 (type: 829 file, Size 256KB)

I right clicked on #1 and sent it to the floppy disk in the floppy drive. It is the Floppy I just made bootable.
I right clicked on #2 and sent it to the floppy drive also.

I then take that floppy to the Amrel Laptop and boot up the Amrel with A drive first on list.
The floppy turns on and the screen gives me
A>

So I type in the command given to me by Amrel

Awardflash RT686.829 CC/CD/CP

Spits back error invalid command. A>

Thats when I go into the directory of floppy and start experimenting with the list of files I found in the directory that I listed in my previous post.

I am stumped.

[rokytnji]

Later today I will make a new floppy using the Windows XP instructions you gave me for making a MSDOS Startup Disk. Maybe the problem is with Bootdisk.coms startup.

[Smokey]

rokytnji, on Dec 23 2008, 08:00 AM, said:

Later today I will make a new floppy using the Windows XP instructions you gave me for making a MSDOS Startup Disk. Maybe the problem is with Bootdisk.coms startup.

Merry Christmas to you also rokytnji.
Every motherboard is different but most motherboards have a flash command. When you first boot that lappy look at the bottom of the screen. You might see something like this: "Press F2 to enter the flash mode/utility". Check it out to see if the lappy has this option. That said:

From everything you posted it sounds like the problem is the command. Make sure that there are no spaces here: [attachment=53679:attachment] and make sure that the space that you have between the "6 .8" belongs there.
All it takes is one miss placed space to receive a flash error.

[rokytnji]

Well , I'm getting nowhere fast. I reformatted floppy. I created the MSDOS Bootup disk in Windows XP. Installed flash files in floppy again. Booted up to
A:\>

Typed in
1. Awardflash RT686.829CC/CD/cp
Bad command or file name
2. Awardflash RT686.829 CC/CD/CP
Bad command or file name
3. AwardflashRT686.829CC/CD/CP
Bad command or file name.

I'm starting to wonder if Bonnie Zheng at Amrel sent me the right command to flash the bios. I sent her another email, but they might be off today for all I know.

I typed in dir to get into floppies file directory and I now show 14 files at 743,523 bytes

List is

EGA2 CPI 58,870 06-08-00
EGA3 CPI 58,753 06-08-00
EGA CPI 58,870 06-08-00
KEYB COM 21,607 06-08-00
KEYBOARD SYS 34,566 06-08-00
KEYBRD2 SYS 31,942 06-08-00
KEYBRD3 SYS 31,633 06-08-00
KEYBRD4 SYS 13,014 06-08-00
MODE COM 29,239 06-08-00
COMMAND COM 93,040 06-08-00
DISPLAY SYS 17,175 06-08-00
CONFIG SYS 0 12-23-08
AWDFLASH EXE 30,670 08-23-01
RT 686 829 262,144 09-25-01
14 file(s) 741,523 bytes
0 dir(s) 596,480 bytes free

A:/>


Thats where I'm at at the moment.

[Smokey]

You're not getting in to the flash utility. That is why I posted this; "When you first boot that lappy look at the bottom of the screen. You might see something like this: "Press F2 to enter the flash mode/utility". Check it out to see if the lappy has this option."

If this option is not available for you, go to the A prompt and type in "AWDFLASH" (no quotes) then press enter. That should get you in to the flash utility. Once there you may be given on screen instructions. If not you will have to type in the name of the bios file which will be the name of the file that was extracted on to the floppy. Forget everything else just the name of the that file. If you have to unzip the file to the desktop to get the exact name do that.

[rokytnji]

Quote

If this option is not available for you

Nope its not, smokey.

I got a email from Bonnie at Amrel telling me she had given me the wrong command. So I tried her new one and all it did was lock up on the screen it took me to with the laptop humming. I told her this, and she said they would make me a floppy and mail it to me. Since they didn't supply me with a md5sum of the file they sent me, and I can't run a check on it, maybe the file is corrupted, who knows?

Anyhow, I guess I will wait and see if that floppy gets sent. I've been on this problem for 3 days now, and I am going to give it a rest. Thanks for the Help and advice smokey. As always your the man . Merry Christmas to you and yours and to all you guys on the forum. Happy Trails

[Smokey]

Sounds like Bonnie is not a person that I would trust. You should find out if they still have bios chips for that model in case you crash the bios with the info that she sends to you. Flashing bios is simple but she is making it sound like a difficult task.

All you should need is the flash utility and the right bios file. The command is the name of the bios file nothing more, nothing less. If it's the wrong bios file or the wrong file name the bios flash should reject the flash attempt. You should email them again and try to get a tech, not an customer service agent.

[Berton]

As I recall BIOS flashing I have done, the bootable floppy needs only these files:

AUTOEXEC.BAT [text file, can be empty, zero size, create with Notepad]
COMMAND.COM
CONFIG.SYS [text file, can be empty, zero size, create with Notepad]
IO.SYS
MSDOS.SYS

These files would be added per instructions given you:

AWDFLASH.EXE 30,670 08-23-01
RT 686 829 262,144 09-25-01

The boot floppy/Startup disk that can be made in WinXP's Windows Explorer is actually a ME/Millenium Edition version, type VER at the A: prompt to check. It does not support NTFS HDDs, not needed to for flashing a BIOS.

[Smokey]

Berton, on Dec 24 2008, 10:43 PM, said:

These files would be added per instructions given you:

AWDFLASH.EXE 30,670 08-23-01
RT 686 829 262,144 09-25-01

The boot floppy/Startup disk that can be made in WinXP's Windows Explorer is actually a ME/Millenium Edition version, type VER at the A: prompt to check. It does not support NTFS HDDs, not needed to for flashing a BIOS.

The problem with the so called files that she sent him are this;

She only sent him "1" file and that file is AWDFLASH.EXE

[attachment=53730:attachment] <----- These are NOT files. Files don't have spaces, commas or hyphens, they will not and cannot be active.

That's why I posted this;

Post 10 said:

All you should need is the flash utility and the right bios file. The command is the name of the bios file nothing more, nothing less. If it's the wrong bios file or the wrong file name the bios flash should reject the flash attempt.

[Smokey]

rokytnji, on Dec 23 2008, 07:54 AM, said:

It said insert formatted floppy disk, which I did, and it wrote to the floppy to make it bootable.
I unzipped the zipped file and extracted 1 file. Labled: BIOS 829. I opened that file and inside were
1. awdflash (type: application, Size: 29.9 KB)
2. RT686.829 (type: 829 file, Size 256KB)
I right clicked on #1 and sent it to the floppy disk in the floppy drive. It is the Floppy I just made bootable.
I right clicked on #2 and sent it to the floppy drive also.
I then take that floppy to the Amrel Laptop and boot up the Amrel with A drive first on list.
The floppy turns on and the screen gives me
A>
So I type in the command given to me by Amrel

Awardflash RT686.829 CC/CD/CP

rokytnji,

Spits back error invalid command. A>

Thats when I go into the directory of floppy and start experimenting with the list of files I found in the directory that I listed in my previous post. I am stumped.

Berton's post made me re-evaluate this problem so I reread the first few posts in this thread. Now it seems to me that Bonnie sent you the right files, I don't know how the names changed as this thread progressed.

Since you're getting to the A:/ the boot disk is doing it's job. Type in "AWDFLASH" (no quotes) then press enter like I said in post 8. That should get you in to the flash utility. Now it should be ready to have the bios file typed in, this is the file name "RT686.829". This file should be listed on the floppy in this form with no spaces.

Note: in most cases when flashing you don't have to include the file extension.

[rokytnji]

I will give it a try after eating lunch. I seem to have more luck trying out your way and with my experimenting I have gotten real close to getting it to work. I'll post a update today after I play with it some more.

[rokytnji]

Well. I couldn't wait for lunch

I typed in AWDFLASH and hit enter
It took me to the flash utility and asks

File Name to Program
I type in RT686.829

It spits out at bottom of window on the utitlity
Error Message : Do You want to save Bios

If I say No, It says can't find source file.

If I say yes, it says what file to save? I don't know what to enter there

[Smokey]

rokytnji, on Dec 25 2008, 04:16 PM, said:

It spits out at bottom of window on the utitlity
Error Message : Do You want to save Bios

If I say No, It says can't find source file.

If I say yes, it says what file to save? I don't know what to enter there

It say this, "Error Message : Do You want to save Bios" exactly?

Are you sure that it's not saying where to save the file?

If the answer is yes to both questions clear the cmos if you can. Then try to flash again.

[rokytnji]

Ok, from the beginning

File name to program: Blank space with flashing cursor

I type in RT686.829

It asks exactly at bottom of window
Error Message : Do You want to save Bios

I type y for yes

File Name to save : Blank space with flashing cursor.


I know this is weird because I have previously flashed bios on my IBM M41 Tower, and IBM Bootable diskette was way simpler to use than this abortion. I was never asked this many questions, or had such a complicated install of a new bios.

[Smokey]

rokytnji, on Dec 25 2008, 07:58 PM, said:

Ok, from the beginning

File name to program: Blank space with flashing cursor

I type in RT686.829

It asks exactly at bottom of window
Error Message : Do You want to save Bios

I type y for yes

File Name to save : Blank space with flashing cursor.
I know this is weird because I have previously flashed bios on my IBM M41 Tower, and IBM Bootable diskette was way simpler to use than this abortion. I was never asked this many questions, or had such a complicated install of a new bios.

Sorry if I have to ask all these questions and say things like "are you sure". Sometimes trouble shooting computers that are not in front of you can be a real challenge. It's usually something very simple that solves the problem.

Since the phrase "Error Message" shows up before the phrase "Do You want to save Bios" leads me to believe that the problem is the file or it's name. As soon as you see a error message like that the flash attempt is over. There's no need to continue trying to save the old bios file.

When you explore the floppy disk is the name of the bios file the same as what you typed in "RT686.829"? These bios files names must match or the bios will never find the new file.

I keep harping on the name of the bios file because 9 out of 10 flash failures are because of the name of that file. Some bios chips don't like upper case, some don't like lower case. Sometimes they don't like the file extension, sometimes they do. It's enough to make a person blow......

[rokytnji]

I like the gif. I play with it and play with it till I get to the point of insanity. (repeating the same actions expecting a different result)

I don't have much confidence in Bonnie, but she is a nice woman, and I don't want to hurt her feelers. I don't want to tell her to connect me to a tech till she mails me that floppy she promised. Amrels support page doesn't give you a direct link to tech support and besides, all those dudes will probably say is "RT686, man we haven't worked on one of those in a long time". I'll Plod along in my own way, and if successful, I will be sure to post exactly how I did it. Whats funny if you google RT686, who's name comes up on google alot. Its mine, thats who . I seem to be the lone ranger in this quest.

[Berton]

Smokey, on Dec 25 2008, 07:32 PM, said:

File Name to save : Blank space with flashing cursor.

Then type in a name such as PreRT686.829, anything you can recognize later that does not exceed the 8.3 file naming convention of DOS. The process will write the file to the floppy disk. Having sufficient room on the floppy is why I delete all unnecessary files from it.