Below 7 Tips to prevent Motherboard bad BIOS flash :
1. Check your Power Supply before you start flashing: The most common cause for screwed up BIOS is power failure during the flashing process. Before you start flashing make sure to connect your computer to a UPS. In event of power failure the UPS would be able to provide power to your computer.
2. If you use UPS make sure that its battery has got enough juice: If the battery of your UPS does not have enough charge, then your computer would go down when there is a power failure or surge. I suggest you plan your BIOS flashing process in advance; you can check your UPS’s battery by putting in battery mode. By doing this you would also come to know how long your UPS would last in event of a power failure. Also make sure you charge your UPS properly so that the battery charge is full when start flashing you motherboard.
3. Correctly identify your motherboard model and current BIOS version: To flash your motherboards BIOS you require the correct BIOS flash file, if you flash your motherboard with wrong BIOS then your motherboard is dead. Though you can identify the your motherboard model using software utilities but I usually do not rely on them. I open up the computers cabinet and find out the motherboard model from there, remember your motherboard model number is always printed on your motherboard. Once you know the motherboard model can head to your manufacturers website and download the latest BIOS update. All of today’s modern BIOS flash utility that manufacturers provide have inbuilt mechanism that prevents you from flashing the wrong BIOS version. This is for people who flash in DOS mode.
4. Close unnecessary programs when you flash within Windows: As you all know sometimes Windows may behave strangely or become unstable so to avoid all this, you better close all programs. My sincere advise would be avoid flashing from within Windows, instead flash from a USB Flash drive in DOS mode.
5. When flashing in DOS mode prefer USB flash drive instead of a Floppy: A floppy disk is very sensitive to environment when compared to a USB flash drive and can get corrupted very soon. So I would suggest you to use USB flash drive instead of a floppy disk.
6. Scan your USB flash disk or Floppy disk for errors or bad sectors before flashing: If your USB flash disk or floppy disk has bad sectors then the BIOS file would get corrupted and probably you would end up with a bad flash. So scanning your USB flash disk or floppy disk makes lot of sense.
7. Read the manufacturer’s instructions carefully before flashing: Each manufacturer provides various ways of flashing your BIOS so before flashing read the instructions for the method that you plan to use carefully and proceed further.
