So as error message (08) is "Verification failed. Unable to verify the expansion ROM image. " I'd guess either a bad flash process or a faulty chip.

How often did you run the update process?...

...once with the original disk which failed because BACKUP.BIN already existed
...once with the original disk, minus BACKUP.BIN (did you try to undekete the BIN file)
...once with a new disk

However often, did the flash program always exit cleanly or did you just turn the PC off?

The recommended method is running restore.bat against BACKUP.BIN on the floppy so you may be out of luck, though as the card is bricked you could try downloading v2.57.2 and rename the ROM image to BACKUP.BIN (no idea if that would even work)

If your BIOS has the option to disable storage option ROMs you should be able to boot with it installed. From there you can boot from a floppy and reflash.

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2020-01-11, 08:02:

So as error message (08) is "Verification failed. Unable to verify the expansion ROM image. " I'd guess either a bad flash proce […]
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So as error message (08) is "Verification failed. Unable to verify the expansion ROM image. " I'd guess either a bad flash process or a faulty chip.

How often did you run the update process?...

...once with the original disk which failed because BACKUP.BIN already existed
...once with the original disk, minus BACKUP.BIN (did you try to undekete the BIN file)
...once with a new disk

However often, did the flash program always exit cleanly or did you just turn the PC off?

The recommended method is running restore.bat against BACKUP.BIN on the floppy so you may be out of luck, though as the card is bricked you could try downloading v2.57.2 and rename the ROM image to BACKUP.BIN (no idea if that would even work)

Exactly ! I must also add that deleting the backup.bin does not remove it from the floppy, just deletes the directory name. Adaptec recommends using a new formatted floppy for EACH adapter you are going to flash and not to use the same floppy for multiple adapters. I almost bricked a 2940uw using same floppy on multi adpaters but got lucky and the restore did work to put back the older bios.

Thanks for the helpful suggestions. I remember reading a while ago you shouldn't use the same floppy twice, but then I got cocky and I didn't think anything major could happen. 😒

The problem is that regardless which system I put the 29160 in, said system now won't start because it will get stuck during the 29160 BIOS routine. So finding a motherboard that allows to bypass the SCSI BIOS might be the ticket, but I'm not sure if I have a Mobo that has this option.

If your Mainboard BIOS is not compressed it should be an easy modification. Search for 55 AA in it and change to AA 55 (or reverse?) After that the option ROM of the SCSI Adapter should not be detected anymore?

I wonder if you could find a datasheet of the (or a similar) flash chip, find "CHIP ENABLE􏰊 CE􏰄#" or a similar pin and temporarily set it to high/low as needed to disable the ROM chip during boot. Once booted, remove the bypass and try to flash it?

Not sure if it can work in this context but I once unbricked a router with invalid ROM (but good loader) in a similar way.

Predator99 wrote on 2020-01-13, 10:27:

If your Mainboard BIOS is not compressed it should be an easy modification. Search for 55 AA in it and change to AA 55 (or reverse?) After that the option ROM of the SCSI Adapter should not be detected anymore?

You'll need a mono or CGA card if you do that because the video BIOS won't init.

That's correct, I forgot 😀

Another option (slightly more risky) might be to 'hot plug' the card in a test system once the OS has loaded and try to flash it from there - did this on a bricked Silicon Image SATA RAID PCI-X controller after a bad flash and it worked OK (same issue as you with hanging at POST)

Plasma wrote on 2020-01-13, 10:31:

Predator99 wrote on 2020-01-13, 10:27:

If your Mainboard BIOS is not compressed it should be an easy modification. Search for 55 AA in it and change to AA 55 (or reverse?) After that the option ROM of the SCSI Adapter should not be detected anymore?

You'll need a mono or CGA card if you do that because the video BIOS won't init.

Wouldn't it fail to boot anything at all then? The FDD/HDD uses that signature to indicate bootable code in the MBR...

Floppies don't have MBRs...

one of my favorite cards there, I luff them. It is the perfect scsi card for just a normal pci slot. An idea might be, a bios can only have enough memory for so many option roms. So you might try to slot a bunch of cards that have option roms, until the memory is too full to have anymore. So like you can slot 3-4 scsi cards, or add so lan cards that have pxe, sata cards that have option roms. At some point you will have too many option roms. Then you put your 29160 in there and the bios will not try to option rom it because its full.

Sounds retarded I know but it might work.

Plasma wrote on 2020-01-14, 02:36:

Floppies don't have MBRs...

Yeah, sloppy phrasing.. whatever, you know what I mean. How about this? The boot sector still has a 55aa signature at byte 510.

Many BIOSes don't check for a signature in the floppy boot sector. Which is why every PC-formatted floppy contains an executable boot sector prompting you to insert another disk when the floppy is not "bootable."

Even if this check exists it's not going to be in the option ROM code.

Yes, the 55AA also identifies an option ROM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Option_ROM
"The first two bytes of the ROM must be 55 AA".

As far as I remember it also checks the checksum, therefore a corrupted option ROM should not be executed anyway.

But you can find the 55AA in the code of the main BIOS and by modifying it you can prevent initialization. Thats the theory...

Right. The issue raised was that if you change the wrong location then the MBR check will fail.

Plasma wrote on 2020-01-14, 20:44:

Many BIOSes don't check for a signature in the floppy boot sector. Which is why every PC-formatted floppy contains an executable boot sector prompting you to insert another disk when the floppy is not "bootable."

Hm. That ... I did not realize. I guess that does explain why seemingly every formatted disk has boot code. I thought it was just a weird quirk of the DOS format tool. Is that (no signature check) common for booting to HDD too? Not sure I've ever had a disk with a valid bootable partition but no code in the boot sector. (Now, corrupted or otherwise occupied boot sector, sure...) Might have to tinker with this and see what happens.

I think most BIOSes check the MBR. I believe the behavior stems from the IBM 5150/5160/5170 and trying to maintain compatibility. The 5150/5160 always load and execute the floppy boot sector if there is a disk in the drive. The 5170 checks that the first 16 bytes of the floppy boot sector aren't equal before executing. But not the signature. However it does check the MBR signature if booting from a hard drive.

in my server i have 2 different sas cards. when booting, it only loads the rom from 1 of the cards.
you could just try loading both cards in your system. it should only load 1 of the roms.
you might have switch them around to get the good rom to load.