SOLVED Possibly bricked my Asus P9X79 BIOS, need some help saving data

[mokrunka]

Hey folks. So, a few nights ago, the rig in my sig was working just fine (as it usually does). That evening, when I shut down the computer, Windows decided to install some updates. Lo and behold, the next day, it won't boot. It gets stuck on the BIOS splash screen. The RAID card initializes fine, and recognizes all of the disks, but the mobo has the "NO BOOT DEVICE" LED on, and it's red. Not good.

So, after trying various Windows disks, and even a Linux boot drive to try and get something to boot, I decided to flash the BIOS (which I hadn't done in maybe a year, and never do unless I have no other recourse). I should point out that throughout the boot cycle, I was not able to get into the BIOS, or select the boot device (F8); no keys were working. In fact, I couldn't even get into the web manager for my RAID controller when it was initializing.

Long story short, I screwed up with I was derping around with the .CAP vs. .ROM files, and I think this caused the BIOS chip to become useless. Now, when I try to turn on the computer, it goes through a power cycle on its own, on for .5 sec or so, then off, then over and over again until I remove the power cable.

I have another Asus board (the P9X79 Pro, which is very similar) that I'm going to try as soon as it gets here (my brother had it sitting on a shelf). I can deal with having to reinstall windows, and all my programs etc. but my real question here is how my RAID card and the drives connected to it are going to react when I power up with the new board.

Will my data, along with the RAID configuration be saved? Will I need to do anything special to make sure I don't lose what are on the 3 arrays on the controller after switching out the board? Have any of you guys had to change hardware like this and transfer over a working RAID card/setup? Just curious how the RAID card and drives will react in the presence of a new motherboard, and if there's anything special I need to do.

Thanks everyone.

 

[Johan45]

Have you tried the bios flashback option? Maybe you can still save it?

 

[mokrunka]

Have you tried the bios flashback option? Maybe you can still save it?

Yep, tried that with several different bioses. No dice unfortunately. .. same bootloop.

 

[Johan45]

I'm not as good with the intel stuff, but I do know that with asus AMD boards I can swap drives from different boards with the same chipset and they always boot. Never done it with a raid though.

 

[Mr.Scott]

If the arrays all go through the raid card, it shouldn't matter what board you put it in.
Onboard raid would be a different story.

 

[caddi daddi]

I just went through a bunch of crap on my rig. I delided a cpu and chucked it in, the rig would start normal, all fans and such worked, no lights or anything on the board would light, not even dr.debug would light.
turned out the cpu was not being clamed into the socket, set an ihs on it and it booted right up.
lights or anyting on your board working?

 

[mimart7]

Try pulling the cmos battery, while you have power cord disconnected.

 

[mokrunka]

Yeah, lights come on and I've got power just no POST. Other yhan the fact that its not bootong everything seems to be in working order.

 

[caddi daddi]

try a full cmos reset just incase.

 

[mokrunka]

Yep, tried that too, took out the battery, swapped jumper, etc... I'm going to be kicking myself for this for a while lol. I'm an idiot.

 

[BobbyBubblehead]

Asus bios is flakey crap at the moment. I trashed a sniper board with undervolting experimental psu's
Far from bullet proof
Shtuff happens...

Edit: the first hit wrecks the primary bios... The second hit writes junk from the secondary and pow... Game over. Welcome to the no boot crew. Lol

 

[mokrunka]

LOL. I know!

The sad thing is that a year ago, when I did this, I had to deal with the whole .ROM converter and the new BIOS format, and it worked fine. Just goes to show that no matter how long you've been doing this, RTFM!! lol.

I'm also pretty ticked that this seems to have stemmed from a Windows update... I have Win 7x64, but I've read online about a bunch of people that have had their Win 8.1 systems fail to boot after dling the most recent set of updates.

 

[BobbyBubblehead]

Oh it is a new update issue then.
My replacement gigabyte board wiped its feet for a while after the update... Then booted to a black screen and mouse... I just thought FU PC! Then did a forced power off and went to the toilet... When I got back it was sat on the desktop. (going to the toilet is an optional step...)
Lol

 

[mokrunka]

Anyone have more thoughts/reassurances for me on the RAID stuff?

 

[Automata]

LSI cards store the configuration on the controller itself. Moving that to a new system should pose no problems at all.

I currently own at least 4 LSI RAID cards (more than double that ever owned) and I've never had a problem with moving the controller.

 

[mokrunka]

Good deal, thanks Thideras. I have the "new" board on the way, and will be swapping it in in the next few days. I'll let everyone know how it goes.

Hopefully, since the boards are the same mfg and architecture, I won't have too many troubles with Windows, and my old install will boot right up...

 

[mokrunka]

Just got the "new" board swapped in. All the same components except for the board, and it was very similar; went from the ASUS P9X79 to the P9X79 Pro. Much to my astonishment, everything booted up fine and is working exactly the same as it was before my system went down.

Thanks to all for the help.