Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
Different motherboards and BIOS versions may have different recovery techniques. Most
motherboards (including those from Intel) that support BIOS recovery incorporate a BIOS
configuration jumper, which can set several modes, including a built-in recovery mode.
Figure 5.5
shows this jumper on a typical motherboard.
Figure 5.5. BIOS configuration jumper.
In addition to moving the jumper, the recovery requires that a USB flash drive, optical drive, or
floppy drive containing media with the BIOS image file is attached to the system and properly
configured.
Before beginning the recovery procedure, you need to download the proper BIOS image file for the
motherboard you are recovering. Obviously, you need to do this using another system if the system to
be recovered is nonfunctional. The BIOS image file can be downloadable separately, or it can be part
of an archive with other files, such as flash programming tools and documentation. In this case you
only need the actual image file; none of the other programs or files will be used.
You can use the optical or USB flash drive methods on motherboards that do not have a built-in
floppy controller or for which the recovery file won't fit on a 1.44MB floppy. Although the drive can
be virtually any type of CD or DVD optical drive, the actual disc you use should be a CD-R or RW
that is burned with the BIOS image file in the root folder and finalized (closed). You can write the
recovery file to disc using the built-in CD-burning software found in Windows (XP or later), or you
can use third-party software such as the free ImgBurn application (
www.imgburn.com
)
. If you are
using the USB flash drive method, note that the drive must be formatted using the FAT-32 file system,
other file systems such as NTFS won't be readable by the motherboard in recovery mode. To recover
the BIOS using the optical drive method, perform the following steps:
1.
Burn and finalize a disc (preferably a CD) with a copy of the BIOS image file in the root
folder.
2.
Place the disc in the primary optical drive of the system to be recovered.
