poisson68
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ROM BIOS checksum error
I got the above message when I try to boot my IBM 6.4GB Desktar 8 harddisk. I managed to use it for quite a few days before this appear. Initially, the CMOS was able to detect the geometry and capacity of the harddisk correctly but after I try to play around with some boot manager, Linux and NT Disk Administration... this happened. I tried low-level formatting this harddisk with utility from Seagate, Maxtor and Quantum but to no avail. Could somebody advice me on what to do next to bring the harddisk back to life. Thanx in advance.
If the message is "ROM BIOS Checksum Error" then this indicates an error in your BOOT/BIOS ROM chip and not the CMOS or battery. If your motherboard has a flash BIOS and you've re-flashed it, then a faulty write might have been the problem. Otherwise, it's possible that your BIOS ROM (or more likely EPROM) is failing and needs to be replaced.
ASKER
It seems that my problem is what mark2150 has described... (I'm not sure yet)
I'm quite certain that the geometry is corrupted... coz when I tried replacing the hdd with other 2 harddisks that I have, it worked.
When the IBM harddisk is attached to the system, I cannot even see the memory reading. It juz shows:
Award BootBlock Bios
..
ROM BIOS checksum error
and keep on prompting to insert a media (1.44)...
Other harddisk work juz as fine.
When I try to detect the harddisk in the CMOS, it is able to find the harddisk but without the correct geometry settings. So I thought of...maybe change the settings to "Auto" but when I reboot the system while waiting for the harddisk to be detected, I see some kinda extended ASCII characters when the system try to display the model of the harddisk.
Once, I have a drive management utility "DrivePro" but it crashed with the harddisk (forgot to backup) and I'm now looking desperately in the Internet to find "DrivePro" and hopefull it should be able to edit the contents of the hd's boot record...or whatever...
I'm quite certain that the geometry is corrupted... coz when I tried replacing the hdd with other 2 harddisks that I have, it worked.
When the IBM harddisk is attached to the system, I cannot even see the memory reading. It juz shows:
Award BootBlock Bios
..
ROM BIOS checksum error
and keep on prompting to insert a media (1.44)...
Other harddisk work juz as fine.
When I try to detect the harddisk in the CMOS, it is able to find the harddisk but without the correct geometry settings. So I thought of...maybe change the settings to "Auto" but when I reboot the system while waiting for the harddisk to be detected, I see some kinda extended ASCII characters when the system try to display the model of the harddisk.
Once, I have a drive management utility "DrivePro" but it crashed with the harddisk (forgot to backup) and I'm now looking desperately in the Internet to find "DrivePro" and hopefull it should be able to edit the contents of the hd's boot record...or whatever...
ASKER
mark2150,
do you have any idea on where to find the low-level format utility for IBM harddisk. I visited their site but juz couldn't find the utility to correct the geometry of my harddisk...thanx
do you have any idea on where to find the low-level format utility for IBM harddisk. I visited their site but juz couldn't find the utility to correct the geometry of my harddisk...thanx
what if you have an _old_ partition on the disk (as a leftover) ? If so, you _need_ to delete this partition with FDISK. In this case, even a low-level format wouldn't bring you further...
ASKER
Sorry I have to reject you answer, but when every thing is solved, I'll consider giving the points...sorry for that, Jhance
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ASKER
Sorry, fozy... it has got nothing to do with the motherboard or the flash bios since the rest of the harddisk works perfectly...even another with the same model...
Sounds like you've corrupted the geometry info on the HD. Get the *exact* manufacturers utility and us *ONLY THAT* to correct. Using a different vendors utility may be the source of the problem as it could have rewritten the geometry info with incorrect data.
M