so, dumbass move #2 this month was flashing my bios. i thought it would be a good idea, moving up to 64-bit. my recording machine has been unable to post since friday evening.

a stuck bios chip is not an irresolvable problem, in theory. these particular chips have something built into the firmware that checks the floppy drive. there's also a cd utility i've used before, but cannot locate right now. i'm hoping the floppy works.....

...but i've been having difficulty finding an operating system that will read a floppy drive. there's a known issue with xp (the workaround is to use server 2003, because home users shouldn't need floppies, apparently). my copy of 98 is broken, in general, and won't read it either. i've tried three specialized recovery linux live cds that won't mount...

so, i'm resorting to installing freedos. and then real dos, if that doesn't work.

worst case scenario, i'll have to go in with a parallel cable and reprogram it manually. so, there's a few more days lost....

i know the drive works and the discs are good, if for no other reason than that i just installed 98 with a boot floppy (even though the os won't read, and it won't read from funny windows 98 dos).

so, i either have two bad floppy cables, two bad floppy drives or one bad bios. i can't get the floppy to do anything at all on this backup motherboard.

the bios hasn't been flashed since 1999. i doubt it supports any method besides a floppy flash. ironically. nor do i suspect asus still has bioses for this thing around...