The BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) is critical to the proper operation of your computer. It is the first code that is executed at start-up and defines the way your motherboard will communicate with the system hardware components.

The decision to flash your BIOS should not be taken lightly. It is essential that you do it mistake free if you still want to be able to use your computer.

For the purposes of this article I am going to assume that you understand the risks of flashing your BIOS and have a good reason for upgrading your existing BIOS. If are not familiar with the basics of flashing the BIOS or if you are not 100 percent sure that flashing your BIOS is the right thing to do then please read the companion article Three Good Reasons for Flashing Your BIOS.

Disclaimer: Flashing the BIOS incorrectly can lead to an unusable system. Flash the BIOS at your own risk.

I have detailed ten common mistakes that are made during a BIOS upgrade listed in order from the beginning to the end of the BIOS flashing process.

1. Misidentification of your motherboard make/model/revision number
If you built your computer then you know the brand of the motherboard that you purchased and you will also likely know the model number. The revision number may be less well known to you.

If you purchased your computer prebuilt, as most people do, then you probably don’t know what is under the hood. You might be able to get the information by entering the serial number of the PC on a Web site, but when it comes to flashing your BIOS you need to be 100 percent accurate and the information on the Web site could be incorrect. The only way to know for sure your motherboard make is to pop off the side panel or open the case and take a peek. (Figure A) Look for the manufacturer, model number and a revision number. (Figure B)

Figure A

The motherboard make is printed on the motherboard. Do not get the name from the fans.

Figure B

The motherboard model can be printed on the motherboard or as in this case, on a sticker placed on the motherboard.

You can also get pertinent information from the initial POST screen. (Figure C) The first line in the upper left portion of the screen shows the BIOS maker and version. The second line shows the motherboard model, BIOS version and date. The lower left section of the screen shows the BIOS version date, motherboard model and BIOS ID.

Figure C

2. Failing to research or understand the BIOS update details
Even properly researching the changes in the BIOS upgrades may not be enough to completely understand exactly what was changed. Often these BIOS upgrade notes are written by techs with little or poor knowledge of English and rarely are the details noted in full. It is not uncommon to find something similar to this.X38-002A BIOS Upgrade

Fix to E6400 S3 resume problem

There are several issues with this. You need to know what E6400 and S3 are. Even after learning that an E6400 is an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU and S3 is one of four sleep functions in the PC’s power settings, you then need to know if you have an E6400 CPU. If you do, are you using the S3 STR (Suspend To RAM) Sleep option in Windows and having problems with it?

You can’t expect your motherboard manufacturer to explain what E6400 and S3 mean, but they should be able to explain what the problem was that was fixed. Perhaps if more people requested this, more detailed information might be included in the BIOS update notes in the future.

Most BIOS updates are cumulative. You will need to review all of the BIOS update notes after your current BIOS version in order to know all of the changes made with the latest upgrade version.

3. Flashing your BIOS for a fix that is not needed
As you can see from the example above, it is often difficult to understand exactly what fix was implemented with a BIOS upgrade. It is equally difficult for the average PC user to determine if any of the hardware in their system is included in the fix. As a rule of thumb if your computer is operating normally, leave it alone.

If you are unsure if a BIOS update will fix a problem that you are having with your PC, you can ask for more information from the manufacturer. Be 100 percent sure that the BIOS update will fix any issues that you may be having before flashing the BIOS. Hoping a BIOS update will fix a problem that you are experiencing is a poor reason to risk a BIOS flash.

4. Flashing your BIOS with the wrong BIOS file
Most BIOS updates come as a zipped file containing the binary code file, the flash utility, and sometimes a README file. Flashing the erasable memory of your BIOS with the wrong code is almost certain to cause failure the next time you try to boot. Be careful when selecting the file. Many motherboard model names are similar within a single manufacturer. Download the file for the exact make/model/revision of your motherboard.

The flash utility included in the download should match the BIOS manufacturer information on the initial POST screen. In the example above, I have an Award BIOS from Phoenix Technologies (Phoenix Technologies and Award merged in 1998). The older version of the Award flash utility that I received in my BIOS update file was called AWDFLASH.EXE. The latest version is called AFU869.EXE. The acronym AFU . It also coincidentally 5. Using an outdated version of the manufacturer flash utility or tool
You may be tempted to pull out the CD that came with the motherboard or computer and use the utilities on the CD to flash your BIOS. It is well worth your time to download the latest utilities from your motherboard manufacturer or computer maker. There is usually a good reason why a new version of the flash program has been made available.

You will need to go to the motherboard manufacturer or computer makers Website to download the latest version of the BIOS code anyway, so plan to download the latest flashing utilities or tools at the same time.

6. Not following or understanding the motherboard manufacturers specific directions
Most of you reading this article and considering a BIOS upgrade are probably of the male persuasion. Like me you probably don’t like reading and following directions. This is one time when reading and following the motherboard manufacturer instructions are essential. Each motherboard has specific steps that must be followed to have the upgrade succeed.

One example of this is a jumper on some motherboards or a setting in some BIOSes that must be changed to enable BIOS memory writing.

Instructions for flashing your make of motherboard can usually be found on the manufacturers Website. Specific instructions are sometimes placed in a README.txt file that comes with the BIOS flash file. Look for and read the instructions in this file carefully.

If you have read all of the steps needed to flash your BIOS and there are some steps that you don’t understand, get help from the manufacturer or consider having a professional do the install for you.

7. Flashing your BIOS without an UPS or at higher risk times
It is best to flash your BIOS with a UPS installed to provide backup power to your system. A power interruption or failure during the flash will cause the upgrade to fail and you will not be able to boot the computer.

Don’t assume that this can’t happen to you. I was converting the file system on the root drive on a PC once at 2:00 in the morning when I heard a loud pop outside. The lights blinked and the conversion failed. Apparently a transformer had blown in the neighborhood interrupting my power just long enough to ruin my day, or rather night. I had to reinstall the operating system from scratch.

If you don’t have access to a UPS, flash the BIOS in the late evenings or when the risk of power outages are lower. Avoid flashing the BIOS during thunderstorms, windy days, high peak electrical usage, prime drive time or any other time when power outages are more likely.

8. Flashing the BIOS from within Windows with other applications running
Flashing your BIOS from within Windows is universally discouraged by motherboard manufacturers. If you absolutely must flash your BIOS from within Windows and are willing to accept the additional risks involved, close all running applications and unnecessary processes. Antivirus processes running in the background are notorious for causing problems.
TechRepublic has a list of services that can be disabled in XP and in Vista.

9. Flashing an overclocked system
Some information I found while researching this article recommended not flashing your PC while it is overclocked. You may be able to successfully flash your overclocked system, but why take the additional risks? I don’t recommend overclocking except for the most experienced users with minimal changes and only for good reason. If you have an overclocked PC, you should be familiar enough with the BIOS to be able to reset the settings to their default values. Play it safe and throttle back.

10. Failing to have a recovery plan if the BIOS flash fails
When things go wrong it is a good idea to have a recovery plan. If your flash utility offers it, make a backup of your existing BIOS code. If this option is not available, download a copy of your current BIOS version or find a utility that will back up your current BIOS code. The original BIOS file should be on a bootable floppy with the flash utility and ready to install.
Prepare in advance for a floppy read failure by making bootable backup copies to have on hand. Mark your floppies with the BIOS version to know which are the new, and which are the original versions. It is also a good idea to copy the files to a Temp directory on the hard drive to verify that the files can be read or you can run CHKDSK to verify that there are no bad sectors on the floppy.

Research possible recovery options in advance and print them out. If you plan for a failure you will be less likely to panic if one occurs. If a failure does happen to you, do not turn off your computer. A failed flash means that the BIOS is likely corrupted and a reboot will fail. Keep the support number for your computer written down and available.

Plan for the worst case scenario; consider keeping a backup PC handy and ready to use.

The Final Word
If you have noticed some themes in this article then you are quite perceptive, patient reader:
Prepare, Prepare, Prepare!
Minimize the risks
Become educated and do your research
Double and triple check your work
I hope that these ten tips will aid you the next time you upgrade your BIOS. Happy flashing

Your comments on AX4 & iSCSI high availability were very informative and provided a number of idea for improving on the described availability scenario. In this post, Scott Lowe continues the availability discussion.

You guys gave me some great thoughts in my last posting in which I discussed my AX4/iSCSI highly available architecture. In this posting, I will continue the thread and give you a look at what the Westminster College architecture will look like in a few weeks. Some of this information is based on ideas provided in your comments. Although I’ve had the basic architectural diagram in mind for quite some time, your comments have helped to refine it.

Let’s start with a look at how VMware ESX will fit into our architecture.

This diagram is very similar to the one from the previous posting with one change. At the bottom of the diagram, I show an ESX cluster, fully VMotion-enabled. Each ESX server has multiple connections to the iSCSI storage network as well as to the primary network the users use to connect to the ESX servers. Under this scenario, we will achieve a high level of service availability for all of the servers running on the individual ESX servers. We’ll get to a highly available architecture with our SQL servers — and well as some other non-ESX services — through clustering, which will also entail a setup like the one above.

The next scenario expands on the scenario shown in the previous discussion.

I mentioned in that posting that, for simplicity’s sake, I wouldn’t show the connections to our core switch — an HP Procurve 5412zl. One of the comments on the previous posting recommended that we use the HP 5412zl for our primary iSCSI VLAN rather than our Dell blade-based M6220 switch. Under this scenario, we would bond together the four uplink ports on the M6220 to the 5412zl. The only downside to this scenario is that all iSCSI traffic from our blade chassis will have to traverse both the M6220 and the 5412zl. An alternative would be to use one uplink port on each of the M6220’s to connect to the AX4 and connect the other pair of iSCSI ports on the AX4 to the 5412zl. Doing this, we would have only two ports available to bond together from the M6220s to the 5412zl. We will test both scenarios, but I suspect that we will go with the alternative scenario I just described as it provides a higher level of redundancy.

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iSCSI is here to stay and will eventually supplant a significant portion of the installed base of Fibre Channel SANs out there. Further, as organizations make their initial forays into block-level shared storage, iSCSI will beat Fibre Channel more often than not.

This week, HP announced their $360 million acquisition of LeftHand networks. Last year, Dell surprised the tech industry with a $1.4 billion purchase of the formerly independent EqualLogic. With these iSCSI snap-ups by true tech titans, iSCSI has officially arrived, is here to stay, and, I believe, will become the technology of choice for most organizations in the future.

This is not to say that iSCSI has been sitting in the background up to this point. On the contrary, the technology has taken the industry by storm. Both of these companies based their entire business hopes on the possibility that organizations would see the intrinsic value to be found in iSCSI’s simplistic installation and management. To say that both companies have been successful would be an understatement.

I’m a big fan of both EqualLogic and LeftHand Networks offerings, having purchased an EqualLogic unit in a former life. At that time, I narrowed my selection down to two options - LeftHand and EqualLogic. Both solutions had their pros and cons, but both were more than viable.

It’s not all about EqualLogic and LeftHand, though. The big guns in storage have finally jumped feet first into the iSCSI fray with extremely compelling products of their own. Previously, these players, including EMC and NetApp, simply bolted iSCSI onto existing products. Lately, even the biggest Fibre Channel vendors are releasing native iSCSI arrays aimed at the mid-tier of the market. EMC’s AX4, for example, is available in both native iSCSI and native Fibre Channel versions and is priced in such a way that any organization considering EqualLogic or LeftHand should make sure to give the EMC AX4 a look. To be fair, the iSCSI-only AX4:

-Does not support SAN copy for SAN to SAN replication
-Is not as easy to install or manage as one of the aforementioned devices, but isn’t bad either
-The bandwidth to the array does not increase as additional space is added
-It does not include thin provisioning, although this was rumored to be rectified in a future software release
-The AX4 supports up to 64 attached hosts

But, the price per TB is simply incredible and a solution based on a different vendor would not have been attainable. This year, I purchased just shy of 14 TB of raw space on a pair of AX4 arrays-4.8 TB SAS and 9 TB SATA-for under $40K. For the foreseeable future, I don’t need SAN copy and space can be managed in ways other than through thin provisioning. Over time, we’ll run about two dozen virtual machines on the AX4 along with our administrative databases and Exchange 2007 databases. By the time I need additional features, the AX4 will be due for replacement anyway.

iSCSI started out at the low end of the market, helping smaller organizations begin to move toward shared storage and away from direct attached solutions. As time goes on, iSCSI is moving up the food chain and, in many cases, is supplanting small and mid-sized Fibre Channel arrays, particularly in organizations that have never had a SAN before. As iSCSI continues to take advantage of high-speed SAS disks and begins to use 10Gb Ethernet for a transport mechanism, I see iSCSI continuing to move higher into the market. Of course, faster, more reliable disks and faster networking capabilities will begin to close the savings gap between iSCSI and Fibre Channel, but iSCSI’s reliance on Ethernet for an underlying transport mechanism brings major simplicity to the storage equation and I doubt that iSCSI’s costs will ever surpass Fibre Channel anyway, mainly due to the expensive networking hardware needed for significant Fibre Channel implementations.

Even though iSCSI will continue to make inroads further into many organizations, I don’t think that iSCSI will ever completely push Fibre Channel out of the way. Many organizations rely on the raw performance afforded by Fibre Channel and the folks behind Fibre Channel’s specifications aren’t sitting still. Every year brings advances to Fibre Channel, including faster disks and improved connection speeds.

In short, I see the iSCSI market continuing to grow very rapidly and, over time, supplanting what would have been Fibre Channel installations. Further, as organizations continue to expand their storage infrastructures, iSCSI will be a very strong contender, particularly as the solution is updated to take advantage of improvements to the networking speed and disk performance