System rendered unbootable!

[Ben Francis]

Eric Donkersloot wrote:

>Was there an OS previously installed on this box ? It seems to me that
>grub has difficulty writing the mbr. You could use the fdisk /mbr
>command to rewrite your mbr anf then reinstall Ubuntu again.
>Are your hard drives correctly detected during the install ?
>
>  
>
Debian was installed previous to Ubuntu, then Knoppix, then Ubuntu 
again. Unfortunately someone in #ubuntu on irc.freenode.net suggested 
that the problem was a buggy BIOS. I went ahead to flash the BIOS with 
an updated version, following the manufacturers instructions to the 
letter. It said it had worked but has not booted at all since! I just 
get a blank screen. I'm now left with a useless motherboard, an angry 
boss and no web server. Such is life.

I guess it was my fault for taking the risk.

I'm currently looking into whether I can get a new BIOS for it and in 
the mean time I'm using an old Celeron machine from home instead. 
Incidentally, never expect that the backup BIOS in a Dual BIOS (TM) will 
save you when flashing goes wrong. It seems the backup BIOS gets flashed 
to the same version as the main BIOS, thereby rendering it useless as a 
backup. I can't even retrieve a backup from floppy because the system 
just won't do anything!

-- 
Ben "tola" Francis            http://hippygeek.co.uk
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