Very unfortunately, my 486-PIO3 mobo is now "bricked". I cannot boot up from either the HDD or the FDD. The BIOS flash operation appeared to half succeed. I flashed it with the 486-PIO3 BIOS attachment file found above, using the awd66.exe flash utility file found above.
After the awd66.exe flash operation finished, I pressed F10 to reset, and then the system printed a strange "malloc error" message. I rebooted, and I could then see the new BIOS datestamp during the BIOS POST stage. It says: 1.15G705. If I set the system to boot from C: first, after the IO controller has identified the HDD, the system just pauses indefinitely. If I set the system to boot from A: first, the screen says "Starting MS-DOS", and stops. Nothing happens.
For the awd66.exe flash operation, I used this command line: awd66.exe 486pio3.awd /py/sn
That means program the flash and don't make a back up. Previously, I made a back up file, but I cannot get in to DOS in order to run Uniflash, in order to reflash the BIOS using my back up BIOS file! Any ideas please people? Can someone please reprogram my BIOS chip? Please?! 😀
Edit: I wonder if the awd flash bios utility I used was "too new"? I tried running the awd55.exe version, but it is zero bytes in length, and couldn't be run. Also, my Winbond chip is W83787F. I read on the FIC 486PIO3 FTP server area, that this is important, but I think the BIOS file attachment found above is suitable for this chip. BastlerMike, what Winbond chip is on your 486-PIO3 mobo?