Flashing New BIOS

[prideouts]

I want to install a newer BIOS on a Sony Vaio PCV-200 that originally had Windows 95. I upgraded to Windows 2000 about 2 years ago. I seem to be having some current problems that I think are due to the current BIOS that the manufacturer recommends changing. The currently recommended one is a BIOS P07 with Install07.Bat but it will not flash over.

I don't know if I need to change the BAT file to fit the newer Windows 2000 configuration. If so, what should the BAT file changes be?? Is there some other trick to making a BIOS flash into a machine that is running Windows 2000?

 

[brianF]

are you following the instructions and creating the bat file on the floppy disk, then rebooting with the floppy in the drive

per this page
HERE

you download the file then put a floppy disk in your computer, double click the download to install three files to the floppy, then double click on install07.bat to copy system and bios files to floppy, then reboot with the disk in your drive

 

[prideouts]

Yes. I have done everything according to the instructions. Several times. No action takes place at all. It is as if the computer doesn't understand DOS language at all.

 

[brianF]

You may have to start the machine with a win98 startup disk and then run the file.
I would email sony first for assistance as a bad flash can render your machine unusualable

 

[prideouts]

Thanks.

Sony declines help. They don't recommend Win2000 for this machine (but won't explain why except that the recovery disk won't work once the switch has been made).

Do you think it is a good idea to reformat, then reinstall the Win95 that came with it, then flash over the BIOS, and then finally go back to the Win2000 by reinstalling it?

If so, what is the best logical order of events to make sure that I don't continue to get the error message, you are trying to install an older version blah blah blah (or the message I'm getting now, plainly that this disk will not work with this machine)?

 

[brianF]

If it where me I guess I would use the win98 boot disk to start the machine, flash the bios from there. I really don't see any reason it won't work. But I repeat that a bad bios flash is a nightmare.

Only thing that bothers me is the system files it says it copies to the floppy, are they part of the download or is it coping them off the system. You may need to make a new bios flash disk on a win98 computer

 

[prideouts]

Why does it matter what operating system is being used when flashing in a new BIOS? The BIOS flashover will come before the operating system is even involved won't it? I still haven't done anything because I am still able to use this machine (with some very annoying error messages).

This machine takes over 5 minutes to boot up. Once the preboot sequence is over (about 3 minutes), the Win2000 portion then proceeds almost normally but then an Explorer.exe application error message about instruction at location could not be read.
Doesn't this sound like a faulty BIOS?

Another crazy thing - there are two instances of Explorer.exe open at the same time. Is this normal? One with 500K of memory usage with no minutes of CPU time, and the other with 8312K and 0:00:13 seconds.

 

[kramnnim]

What happens if you close either of the instances of explorer?