Background: A Puter I bought back in 2000 came with ME, an OEM version. ME doesn't phone home, the OEM version is tagged to the MB of the OEM Puter it came with. LSS, in 2006, the MB started freezing (caps). I built a PC clone, but of course, the original OEM HD wouldn't run on it, and the ME recovery disc wouldn't accept the different MB. On a hunch, i built another clone, and purchased a new identical MB (FIC AZ11) of the original on Ebay. It worked, ME would load a new HD on the clone. If I stopped the computer after the load, and before the install reboot, The ME HD would initialize and run on any PC. This clone became my OS Loader. I know ME is old, but it works fine for the several shop Puters I use. No need to upgrade. Being a packrat, I saved the old MB for a rainy day. The OS loader was having some issues lately, and I found a BIOS upgrade I thought might solve them. I checked carefully that the Bios and flash utility were compatable with my hardware and current Bios. Booted to ME boot floppy, and loaded the flash utility and Bios file. After the utility reported sucessful write, I rebooted. NOTHING. The PSU and fans would start, but no VGA, and no POST at all. No way to get the floppy drive to work. The Bios was so screwed, even the Bios bootlock program would not initialize. At this piont, I didn't know if the Bios *.bin file was corrupted, or the flash utility malfunctioned, but now, no way to load the backup of the old Bios I made. Scary part: Fortunately, the Bios on this MB is socketed, not soldered. I removed the chip from the old board I saved, and installed it in the clone. POST! Floppy boot to A:! The world is perfect again. Hot Swap: While the clone was running, and making sure I was grounded properly, I removed the Bios chip from the running board, and installed the pooched one. Loaded the flash utility and backup copy of the old Bios. Sucess; the reboot POST went fine. No prob with the flash utility. I downloaded another copy of the Bios upgrade, and re-ran the flash. This time it worked; the bios shows the upgrade version. Moral: Save your old hardware, even defunct stuff. you never know when you may need it. JR dweller in the cellar
HOME PAGE: