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How do I dump my BIOS?

Posted: Sat Jun 06, 2020 1:59 pm
by Ene
Hello, I have a late 90s computer with a Soltek SL67-EB motherboard.
It has Award BIOS on it, like basically any motherboard of that era. I tried using AWDFLASH utility for DOS, no luck there. :?
It just gives me a broken file that can't be read.

Are there any good utilities to dump Award BIOS onto a file?
Just in case, the PC runs Windows 98 SE and I started AWDFLASH under the DOS mode.

Re: How do I dump my BIOS?

Posted: Sun Jun 07, 2020 4:38 pm
by overdoze
It might be possible to do it with DOS' debug utility.

Re: How do I dump my BIOS?

Posted: Sun Jun 07, 2020 10:46 pm
by Battler
Unless you can find a way to dump high addresses (in this case, FFFC0000-FFFFFFFF) with DEBUG, I doubt it's going to be useful. On the low addresses (E0000-FFFFF), only the decompressed BIOS is there, the actual compressed blob that needs to be dumped is on the higher addresses.

Re: How do I dump my BIOS?

Posted: Thu Jun 11, 2020 7:24 am
by coolgamerxd
For an Award board. Use AWDFLASH.

Boot off a DOS diskette with AWDFLASH in it. Then use that command below

AWDFLASH /sy /pn

It'll ask you for a filename, give it as BIOS.BIN and it'll begin dumping your ROM.
Try it under a Windows 95 boot disk. I think 98 & ME have issues.

DEBUG referenced above will dump only 64KB of your ROM (1/2 if 1Mbit or 1/4 if 2Mbit).

If that doesn't help you, maybe Uniflash can help you getting a backup. I'll try it on my own Socket 7 board and give results here soon.

Re: How do I dump my BIOS?

Posted: Fri Jun 12, 2020 11:45 am
by coolgamerxd
I can confirm Uniflash works fine. It managed to dump my BIOS properly without any issue. Just throw uniflash to a folder on the C: drive, reboot to MS-DOS Mode, launch Uniflash and on it's menu select the first one talking about backup, give it a filename and your BIOS will be dumped successfully.

Uniflash link can be found there: https://www.download3k.com/System-Utili ... Flash.html

Re: How do I dump my BIOS?

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2020 9:13 pm
by altheos
Strangely enough Uniflash hadn't succeed dumping an old IBM I owned.
It was probably due to its proprietary BIOS.
even if it's not your case Ene, for old machines without flash BIOS, you can try NSSI : http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fi ... enustate=0