Advice On Virtual Dual Bios

[grees00]

I've got a GA-P35C-DS3R Rev2.0, I plan to upgrade from my E6600 to one of the new 45nm chips soon and I know I'll have to upgrade my BIOS from it's current F4.
Obviously I want to do this in the safest way possible, I've read in the specs on the Gigabyte page for my board that it supports virtual dual bios but there's nothing in my manual about how to set this up or how to use it if a board goes t*ts-up after flashing the BIOS.
Can someone tell me more about it and how to use it please?

[HemiRick]

Re: Advice On Virtual Dual Bios

It's basically an automatic system....not much you can do except watch it.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Advice On Virtual Dual Bios

Do Flash using Qflash with a USB or floppy, I just see more and more @BIOS failures each day. Just posted a reply to one here at the top of the forum.

And yes, HemiRick is right, You have no control over this other then to try to ensure you do a proper BIOS flash. Not in windows

[Rewl]

Re: Advice On Virtual Dual Bios

I wonder if anyone has ever been saved by the newer generation virtual dual bios. It seems it's breaking more than it could ever be able to fix.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Advice On Virtual Dual Bios

Yes, I have read it works............

But Sadly I have read 1000X's more about it not working, Dual or Quad BIOS

[grees00]

Re: Advice On Virtual Dual Bios

Thanks for the replies lads.
Don't worry, I wasn't planning to use @bios, I've heard nothing but problems arising from that.:-)

[weckker]

Re: Advice On Virtual Dual Bios

Is there a diference between Dual BIOS and Virtual Dual Bios?
As I was looking on gigabyte web site at the comparation sheet between the revisions 1.0 and 2.1 of the P35-DS3R motherboards i saw that 2.1 has Dual Bios "Yes" while the 1.0 has "Yes(Virtual Dual Bios)".

I've updated the BIOS on 2 boards P35-DS3L (1.0)&(2.0) to F8a and on a P35-DS3R (2.1) to F11 using @BIOS utility and had no problem with any of them, guess i was lucky. First I tryed to load it with qFlash from an USB stick formated FAT32 but it wouldn't recognize it, I had no floppy at hand so I did it with the @BIOS.
Anyway, my question is: "Is there a diference between Dual BIOS and Virtual Dual Bios?"

[HemiRick]

Re: Advice On Virtual Dual Bios

I have a 2.1 Ds3P and it has 2 physical BIOS chips on it, so it has Dual BIOS, the virtual DB only has 1 physical chip. The virtual chip is a backup copy stored on a drive.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Advice On Virtual Dual Bios

You probably just need to reformat that USB stick and add your BIOS back on and try again, For next time!!! Just so you know it will show as a actual "Hard Disk" in Qflash

[weckker]

Re: Advice On Virtual Dual Bios

Thanks for the info . Actually the USB stick was just formated before i copyed the bios on it. In QFlash my choices were A: and B: (both floppy) and my floppy drive is not even installed. Is there any specific USB port where to plug it in in order to be recognized? I have both USB mouse and keyboard, the rest of the USB ports were empty at the time and all the bios settings regarding USB ports were enabled. Anyway I hope I won't need to upgrade the bios anytime soon.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Advice On Virtual Dual Bios

Not sure, I used one of my front ports. Did you look in the floppy choices??? Just asking, because I remember when I first used it the choices looked strange to me.

Hmmm, did you format it fat32?

[weckker]

Re: Advice On Virtual Dual Bios

I looked in both of them and they just looked empty. And i've tryed both FAT16 and FAT32 without succes, maybe my stick is just not suported, I also tryed with an iPod formated to FAT32 but still no succes. I'll try with a sd card and a card reader or a mp3 player in the next days, I'll let you know if I succed.

[HemiRick]

Re: Advice On Virtual Dual Bios

I have the same prob with my A-data 4 G USB stick, it's not seen....In fact I can save a BIOS file to it and then it CAN see that saved BIOS file and nothing else on the stick.....but then look at the stick under Windows and CANNOT see the saved BIOS file. A diskcheck will find it though, and calls it a lost file or something, and asks if you if it can fix it. After it's fixed you can see the file in Windows, but then the BIOS cant find it....WEIRD. This drive is FAT32.