Development Hell, Part II
July 4, 2008Ok, so after creating a proper boot disk on a Mac computer, which would have been a pain in the neck if I didn’t have Windows XP installed in VMWare Fusion, and moving the BIOS reflashing software and image onto the diskette, I slapped the diskette into the floppy drive and fired up the machine. Nothing happens as the system refused to boot using the diskette. The 3 1/2″ drive was the “B:” drive and, of course, this particular BIOS doesn’t recognize the “B:” drive as a candidate drive in the boot sequence. Normally, I would have just used the “Swap Drives” option in the BIOS, but if you’ve read the last post, you’ll know my BIOS seems to have a bad case of Alzheimer’s. With my back against the wall, I knew the only option was to tear my carefully installed ribbon cables apart, and after the customary floppy drive error due to misaligned cable, I was ready to begin the process again. Knowing I was nearing my goal, I hurriedly rebooted and began flashing the EPROM with all haste. After following a few poorly worded prompts and trying to digest the jumbled documentation, the process was complete at last. Content with the success of the operation, I rebooted the machine and waited for the uncorrupted BIOS to work its magic. Exhausted and more than a little frustrated at having to reconfigure the BIOS for the twentieth time, I was treated to a marvelous sight:
“CMOS Checksum error – Defaults loaded.”
Categories: Hardware, Retro
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