A little help with A7M266 Bios management please?

Me myself & him

Me myself & him

New member
I'm trying to flash the Bios, but I can't remember how to get into DOS

I think the most recent Bios according to the site is 1007 which the board came with.
 
Why do you need to flash your BIOS? If you are not having problems with it, I would suggest to leave it alone. On some occasions, flashing your BIOS can go wrong, and in some cases, render your BIOS useless. Unless you are having a problem, and it operates fine, I wouldn't do it. If you need the updated BIOS, thorough instructions should be on the website of its manufacterer. What Operating System do you use? (To tell you how to get into DOS)
 
I'll second that.

Don't flash your BIOS.

You need a boot floppy with the AWDFLASH program along with the .bin files for your board. Depending on the setup in BIOS, set it up to boot off of the floppy. You should get a DOS prompt easy.

Sang
 
OH

In that case, I don't think it has to do with flashing the BIOS, I'm using win98, soon to move up to XP.

The thing is I just installed the MOBO last evening, and during boot up, it does this,

DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER

Does it mean WIN98 disk?

If so, does this mean I'll have to reformat my hard drive?
 
Asus has a flash program that you can use without booting to DOS.

As far as it not booting...did you hook your hard drive up right? Did you leave a floppy in the drive?

You're right, this is not a BIOS issue.

Slackmaster 2000
 
MM&H,
If you want to flash something, put on a long brown overcoat and flash your neighbors not your BIOS. ;)
 
I think my neighbor just flashed me

I don't have a disk in the floppy, I don't think it's detecting my hard drive. Under "BOOT" in the bios, for the second boot device

IDE HARD DRIVE
it says [NONE]

I took extra painstaking care to hook everything up right, according to the Manual......... well..........except for the LED leads, that was really really really confusing, and nothing like on my old MOBO.
 
I didn't know there were jumpers on the drive:o :(

It was okay with the last system I had it in and I didn't touch any jumpers on it:(
 
Some drives have jumpers.
This is set so the computer will know if the drive is going to be a master or slave ect.
 
OK we'll go from the beginning.

Disk Boot failure basically means that the BIOS can't see a boot disk.

Not it's not there, mind you, but it just can't see it.

Couple of things:

a. Get into your BIOS. Where it says Primary Master, it should show your drive number Like WD456789 or something like that. If it does not, press 'Enter' and a seek sequence should start. Your hard dive should be detected at the end, with all sector info and stuff.

If it is not, check:

1. the ide controller your hard drive is on, it should be on the lower numbered one. Not the lower one, just the number: usually 1 or 0, depending on the manufacturer of the board, who follow schemes like IDE0/1 and IDE1/2.

2. The jumper on your hard drive, should be set to Master ideally but should boot OK if it is on slave. Master is preferable. Since you were OK on the last system I doubt it'd require tweaking.

b. Again in BIOS: Check your boot sequence. Should be Floppy, CDROM, and IDE-0 in that order. you may want to disable the first two and have the system off of IDE0 in the first place. I like to keep it on because, well, just because. IDE 1,2,3 refer to the other IDE connections. Not required except if you're booting off another drive.

Your error message probably means the BIOS may not be looking for a hard drive at all. The Asus BIOSes need to be explicitly told where the hard drives are. I actually like that system as I can't stand the BIOS looking for the drives each time on bootup.

c. In any case since you've changed your mobo I would strongly advise a fresh format and install. You'll have a lot of junk floating about if you don't do this, and it's a little dicey anyway. A format shouldn't take you much time.

d. Since it's been a while since I looked at an Asus BIOS, I'm not sure where to look for this, but it must be under that section. You should press Enter under that option (IDE Hard Drive) to get to the screen you want.

e. Are you sure you got the cables in correctly? Double- and triple- check them. Forget the LED indicators for the time being, concentrate on getting your system working. When you do, read the manual to figure the connections out.
 
Currently following your Advice

The only reason I don't want to format is because I have some songs I didn't get to back up. I was planning to back them up and format the drive when the MOBO arrived, but burned my CPU before I could do that:(
 
In which case don't format, just install windows from scratch over the current one (what is known as a dirty install). It shouldn't wipe out your data but will indicate to the install that some stuff has changed, so it will ask you for new drivers etc. At the first chance back up your data, nuke the drive and install fresh. Preferably XP.

I have switched drives over systems in the past, most notably when I switched my old 8GB drive over from a K6-2 Ali Chipset mobo to an Asus A7VL-VM, based on KL133 chipset, I just installed the drivers and I was up and away. Absolutely the wrong thing to do, as I figured out much, much later.
 
The first thing you should check is that a) you remembered to supply power to the drive b) that your cable is hooked up right. Remember, pin 1 is always marked in red, and pin 1 will be labeled on the motherboard. On an IDE hard drive, pin 1 is always *towards* the power connector. Make sure the cable is on the pins correctly and that none of the pins are bent.

Slackmaster 2000
 
WOHOOOOO

I switched the jumper to Cable select and I'm listening to a song right now! Everything works fine.

Sangram, I'm planning to back up the stuff anyway, but should I still format?

I'm trying to get XP as soon as I can


Man! I've learned so much today, time to go to sleep;)
 
Sleep first.

Reformat the drive anyway. It'll be worth it, not worth shooting your install in the foot by a system crash.

If you get XP in the next few days you reformat then. Meanwhile I wouldn't do anything critical like tracking/mixing on that system till at least a reformat, but I'm just paranoid.
 
Yup, turns out I had the hard drive slaved to the CD burner last time, or the other way around. Anyway, this time I had the hard drive on it's own Cable and that's why I needed to have the jumper on Cable Select.

Learn something new everyday huh.

Tried to sleep, but after a couple of hours of laying there, I decided I wasn't going to happen.

Can I at least back up all the music?
 
Of course you should make a backup. Do that before anything at all.

I assume you've got your burner working.

Sang
 
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