[jhb] Re: PC disaster - and recovery
- From: Phil Reynolds <phil.reynolds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: jhb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2011 07:53:19 +0100
Hi Mike,
Been there, done that! I've also learnt the hard way never to flash the
BIOS unless it is absolutely necessary.
Phil
On 09/10/2011 18:12, Mike Lucas wrote:
My main flight sim PC died on Friday afternoon when the BIOS chip on
the mobo failed following an attempt to flash update the BIOS.
I managed to source a similar mobo on the internet at 16.45 on Friday,
delivered 11.00 Saturday and fitted during the afternoon. The PC
didn't want to boot initially with the new board - first because I had
the BIOS set to try and boot from a non-bootable drive, then (I think)
because the old mobo in dying corrupted the master boot record on the
bootable drive. I could possibly have fixed the MBR but, before I had
worked out that the MBR could be corrupt, I had embarked on a full
system restore from Acronis. This worked pretty well - it enabled me
to boot the PC - but my backup file was older than I remembered so it
didn't include a number of Windows updates. Also the backup contained
the drivers for the old mobo, and the new one required different
drivers but those were installed quite quickly (I bought a new mobo
from the same 'family' - I have been caught out previously when trying
to restore Windows to a system with a totally different mobo: failure,
and a complete reinstall of Windows required).
This really was a classic case of "If it isnae broke, dinna fix it".
The old mobo was working perfectly well previously, but I just took it
into my head to flash update the BIOS. This is something I have done
previously (but successfully) with other mobos, so perhaps this BIOS
chip was on its way out anyway. Apart from probably deterring me from
trying this again, the experience has taught me to (a) consider
"fixmbr" as a potentially much quicker and neater means of getting a
recalcitrant drive to boot; and (b) ensure that my full system backups
are completely up-to-date.
Well - at least it was something to do instead of watching England's
dreary rugby performance ...
Mike L
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