I'd try Uniflash in a case like this. https://www.download3k.com/System-Utilities/O … d-UniFlash.html

Repo Man11 wrote on 2023-05-16, 23:43:

I'd try Uniflash in a case like this. https://www.download3k.com/System-Utilities/O … d-UniFlash.html

Is there a way I can confirm that the newer file is correct before potentially forcing it on and potentially having to buy hardware to recover the board?

Maybe compare it to the one on Jan's page? I notice that the one Jan has is an .exe; maybe it includes the proper flash utility? http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/J.Steunebrink/k6plus.htm

Hmm yeah I remember evasive hunting down BIOSTAR stuff a few years ago, know that:
Pentium -- M5ALC
2MB BIOS ALC0131B.BIN : Feb-26-2000
Windows 2000 (RC3 build 2194) install to ACPI mode.

1MB BIOS ALC0331B.BIN : Mar-31-1999
Disable K6 write allocate, from chip and CPU. L2 cache hit/miss use T3end.
---
Not sure where they got ALC1020B . Even Mobokive it does not list it: https://www.elhvb.com/mobokive/Archive/Biosta … 5alc/index.html
Yes at Jan's site does not have the flasher in the exe but trust that bios. It is for the 2Mbit EEPROM, so if your board has just a 1Mbit then it cannot be flashed with it......
Also Booting Win98 DOS mode is not usually "clean" unless you make sure nothing is loaded except himem.sys. Cannot have anything else loaded when flashing a bios, though that may not be the problem.
Also the archive of BIOSTAR has AWDflash 7.87D listed as the one, http://web.archive.org/web/20010827201207/htt … t/biosindex.htm
you can DL it straight from there... and here is yer BIOS page: http://web.archive.org/web/20010827212104/htt … pport/m5alc.htm

ALC1020B is listed on BIOSTAR USA as "only for 1mb bios chip (SST-29EE010, Winbond-W29EE011 and MX-28F1000PPC)"

https://web.archive.org/web/20001028233510/ht … M5ALC_Bios_.htm

Wow, thanks ! So no larger HD support with it, just CPU speed display. Being dated late 2000 Wonder why it was not on the TW archive from August 2001. Also note you cannot actually DL it so no way to see if it exact same file... urrg!

Jan's link to the old Wim's site is broken, but here's a Wayback link to that page: https://web.archive.org/web/20051105011452/ht … ex.php?count=-1
If you have a 256k BIOS chip you should be good to go.

Horun wrote on 2023-05-17, 00:38:

Hmm yeah I remember evasive hunting down BIOSTAR stuff a few years ago, know that: Pentium -- M5ALC 2MB BIOS ALC0131B.BIN : Feb […]
Show full quote

Hmm yeah I remember evasive hunting down BIOSTAR stuff a few years ago, know that:
Pentium -- M5ALC
2MB BIOS ALC0131B.BIN : Feb-26-2000
Windows 2000 (RC3 build 2194) install to ACPI mode.

1MB BIOS ALC0331B.BIN : Mar-31-1999
Disable K6 write allocate, from chip and CPU. L2 cache hit/miss use T3end.
---
Not sure where they got ALC1020B . Even Mobokive it does not list it: https://www.elhvb.com/mobokive/Archive/Biosta … 5alc/index.html
Yes at Jan's site does not have the flasher in the exe but trust that bios. It is for the 2Mbit EEPROM, so if your board has just a 1Mbit then it cannot be flashed with it......
Also Booting Win98 DOS mode is not usually "clean" unless you make sure nothing is loaded except himem.sys. Cannot have anything else loaded when flashing a bios, though that may not be the problem.
Also the archive of BIOSTAR has AWDflash 7.87D listed as the one, http://web.archive.org/web/20010827201207/htt … t/biosindex.htm
you can DL it straight from there... and here is yer BIOS page: http://web.archive.org/web/20010827212104/htt … pport/m5alc.htm

1020B flashed without issue in DOS mode but didn't enable larger drive support, so I'm either going to have to get a 32GB SSD (more likely) or get a compatible 2mbit ROM and try the modded bios

Sukhoikip wrote on 2023-05-17, 15:21:

Horun wrote on 2023-05-17, 00:38:

Hmm yeah I remember evasive hunting down BIOSTAR stuff a few years ago, know that: Pentium -- M5ALC 2MB BIOS ALC0131B.BIN : Feb […]
Show full quote

Hmm yeah I remember evasive hunting down BIOSTAR stuff a few years ago, know that:
Pentium -- M5ALC
2MB BIOS ALC0131B.BIN : Feb-26-2000
Windows 2000 (RC3 build 2194) install to ACPI mode.

1MB BIOS ALC0331B.BIN : Mar-31-1999
Disable K6 write allocate, from chip and CPU. L2 cache hit/miss use T3end.
---
Not sure where they got ALC1020B . Even Mobokive it does not list it: https://www.elhvb.com/mobokive/Archive/Biosta … 5alc/index.html
Yes at Jan's site does not have the flasher in the exe but trust that bios. It is for the 2Mbit EEPROM, so if your board has just a 1Mbit then it cannot be flashed with it......
Also Booting Win98 DOS mode is not usually "clean" unless you make sure nothing is loaded except himem.sys. Cannot have anything else loaded when flashing a bios, though that may not be the problem.
Also the archive of BIOSTAR has AWDflash 7.87D listed as the one, http://web.archive.org/web/20010827201207/htt … t/biosindex.htm
you can DL it straight from there... and here is yer BIOS page: http://web.archive.org/web/20010827212104/htt … pport/m5alc.htm

1020B flashed without issue in DOS mode but didn't enable larger drive support, so I'm either going to have to get a 32GB SSD (more likely) or get a compatible 2mbit ROM and try the modded bios

Or, you could try the modded alc1020b 1Mbit BIOS. 😉
This patched alc1020j BIOS supports the K6-2/K6-III CPUs and has a fix for the 32GB and 64GB limit bugs to support HDD up to 128GB. However, it doesn't support the K6-2+/-III+.

Here you go:

Cheers, Jan

Chkcpu wrote on 2023-05-17, 19:59:

Or, you could try the modded alc1020b 1Mbit BIOS. ;) This patched alc1020j BIOS supports the K6-2/K6-III CPUs and has a fix for […]
Show full quote

Or, you could try the modded alc1020b 1Mbit BIOS. 😉
This patched alc1020j BIOS supports the K6-2/K6-III CPUs and has a fix for the 32GB and 64GB limit bugs to support HDD up to 128GB. However, it doesn't support the K6-2+/-III+.

Here you go:
ALC1020j.zip
Cheers, Jan

Thanks ! awesum work, do not have a way to test it but am happy you had the time to fix it. Saved in my archives 😀

Horun wrote on 2023-05-18, 01:52:

Chkcpu wrote on 2023-05-17, 19:59:

Or, you could try the modded alc1020b 1Mbit BIOS. ;) This patched alc1020j BIOS supports the K6-2/K6-III CPUs and has a fix for […]
Show full quote

Or, you could try the modded alc1020b 1Mbit BIOS. 😉
This patched alc1020j BIOS supports the K6-2/K6-III CPUs and has a fix for the 32GB and 64GB limit bugs to support HDD up to 128GB. However, it doesn't support the K6-2+/-III+.

Here you go:
ALC1020j.zip
Cheers, Jan

Thanks ! awesum work, do not have a way to test it but am happy you had the time to fix it. Saved in my archives 😀

@Horun, You’re welcome. I did test this patched alc1020j BIOS in 86Box and it worked well. I used the GA-5AX machine in 86Box, a comparable board that uses the same Aladdin V chipset.

@Sukhoikip, A test on real hardware is what we like to see, so please let us know how the patched alc1020j 1Mbit BIOS works on your M5ALC board with drives up to 128GB.
Note that on the second BIOS boot screen, where the hardware summary is displayed, any drive up to 65535MB is displayed in MB but larger drives are now show in GB.

I can also patch this BIOS for AMD K6-2+/K6-III+ support but this will take more time. Let me know if you want that and I will put this BIOS on my “to be patched” list. 😉

Jan

Chkcpu wrote on 2023-05-18, 09:05:

@Horun, You’re welcome. I did test this patched alc1020j BIOS in 86Box and it worked well. I used the GA-5AX machine in 86Box, a […]
Show full quote

Horun wrote on 2023-05-18, 01:52:

Chkcpu wrote on 2023-05-17, 19:59:

Or, you could try the modded alc1020b 1Mbit BIOS. ;) This patched alc1020j BIOS supports the K6-2/K6-III CPUs and has a fix for […]
Show full quote

Or, you could try the modded alc1020b 1Mbit BIOS. 😉
This patched alc1020j BIOS supports the K6-2/K6-III CPUs and has a fix for the 32GB and 64GB limit bugs to support HDD up to 128GB. However, it doesn't support the K6-2+/-III+.

Here you go:
ALC1020j.zip
Cheers, Jan

Thanks ! awesum work, do not have a way to test it but am happy you had the time to fix it. Saved in my archives 😀

@Horun, You’re welcome. I did test this patched alc1020j BIOS in 86Box and it worked well. I used the GA-5AX machine in 86Box, a comparable board that uses the same Aladdin V chipset.

@Sukhoikip, A test on real hardware is what we like to see, so please let us know how the patched alc1020j 1Mbit BIOS works on your M5ALC board with drives up to 128GB.
Note that on the second BIOS boot screen, where the hardware summary is displayed, any drive up to 65535MB is displayed in MB but larger drives are now show in GB.

I can also patch this BIOS for AMD K6-2+/K6-III+ support but this will take more time. Let me know if you want that and I will put this BIOS on my “to be patched” list. 😉

Jan

It 99% works. It detects a 40GB native IDE HDD but the 128GB SSD is still not being detected

Is it a true IDE SSD or SATA w/adapter or ?? Not all newer SSD work on older computers.....

Horun wrote on 2023-05-20, 01:29:

Is it a true IDE SSD or SATA w/adapter or ?? Not all newer SSD work on older computers.....

It's a modern SSD via an adapter. It works fine in the 2 other IDE systems I tried, a 2002 socket 370 prebuilt and a LGA775 Dell

Ok so on one of the other motherboards, get the detected C-H-S numbers and enter them in type 47 or "user defined" in the M5ALC bios and then see if FDISK sees it.

Tried giving it the values, still not detected and with the values in place it doesn't detect the CD drive slaved to it. Not sure what relevance it showing up to FDISK has as I'm trying to use it as a boot drive. W2K setup successfully formatted it and copied files to it in the M5ALC, but couldn't proceed because the board couldn't boot from it

As it turns out, the BIOS patch is fine and the adapter is just being picky, only showing up when it's the sole device on its IDE channel. I had been trying it with a CD drive in slave mode on the same channel.

Good to know ! Thanks.

Sukhoikip wrote on 2023-05-22, 02:36:

As it turns out, the BIOS patch is fine and the adapter is just being picky, only showing up when it's the sole device on its IDE channel. I had been trying it with a CD drive in slave mode on the same channel.

Thanks for the follow-up. Good to hear that the patched BIOS works okay! 😀

Jan