When you update your BIOS, it overwrites the actual CMOS chip on your motherboard (the physical hardware). Not on the C:\ drive or such. It's possible for an error to have occurred when your friend flashed his BIOS, therefore resulting in an unusable computer.

Go to the website of the motherboard manufacturer and download the latest BIOS flash update onto a floppy. Have your friend run it via DOS and hopefully it'll fix the problem.

What if your BIOS was flashed, and the system will not even POST? Am I going to have to replace the whole mobo?

Hmm, if he flashed it wrong it may be a problem, do you know if he really flashed the CMOS? If not then just clear the CMOS using the clear CMOS jumper next to the battery on the motherboard, it consist of 3 pins and has the jumper normally across 1-2, set it accross 2-3 then power on the pc and it should go straight to the BIOS and you can set it to factory defaults and then shutdown, put the jumper back across 1-2 and it should work.

If your lucky your motherboard may have a dual BIOS feature, some Gigabyte boards have this and you can select the other BIOS when you first turn on the machine, but most motherboards do not feature this. I think he updated his system drivers, and tried to reload his pc because if he flashed his BIOS unsuccessfully then he would not have been able to format the PC to begin with- in that case he will probably have to download drivers to another pc and copy to CD then use the CD to install the drivers on his PC.

I tried resetting the CMOS using the jumper (I have an ASUS A7V so there's just the two solder pins) and it didn't work.

Is it an NForce 2 chipset board, if so try holding down the insert key when you power it on, that is how I had to reset my Chaintech NF2 board as the jumper didn't work for me either then.

ok hi every one its sems i have the same prob i hope to find the answer her because i serf the all net but no one can tell me what should i do this is bref for my prob"((... i was updating my bios forD850mvintel from winXP .
i install the updating then my pc do restart after that i have nothing ..... when i start my pc i have 3 beebs lik that teet ..teet ..teet
untel know i dont know what to do i try flash it by download te updating into floppy A:\ but the bios it self not working so how do i floshit or restor it ... i replace the JP and removing battery ..etc nothing work .. :eek:

Forget trying to reset it. cscgal has the perfect and safest way to fix the problem. Flashing the BIOS is different then reseting the BIOS information.

Flashing actually writes to a non-volatile memory, which will remain even if you remove the tiny battery, reset it, remove it from the mother board, run over with a H2, or eat it. It writes the basic program (Basic Input Output System) to a the chip.

Reseting the BIOS simply erases the data from a volatile memory (the CMOS), which is used by the BIOS itself. Sort of a database for the BIOS.

A misnomer, but we have to live with it.

Just remove the cmos battery for about 5 minutes and replace...reboot and go to the cmos setup.