[CLUE-Tech] Alpha bios info.

[Jeremy Huber]

I had similar problems on mine... the AS255 is indeed a halfflash box, so
you have to pick either SRM or ARC.  Every distro I've seen recommends using
SRM, (the AlphaBIOS is pretty, but not that useful).

All you have to do is copy the firmware.exe file to a dos floppy named
fwupdate.exe (I think that's what it's supposed to be called), then go into
the AlphaBIOS, choose update AlphaBIOS, and let it read the floppy.  The
problem I ran into several times was that I had to do a FULL wipe/format of
the floppy before I copied the file to it.  Once I did that (and found a
good floppy), it works fine.  You just want to update the SRM, and the
SROM/DROM if they need it... (the update proggie will tell you the current
version and the version on the firmware disk)  Once you do, just exit, it'll
reboot, and should come up to the new BIOS.  One note:  SRM has a nifty
feature to allow autoboot once you tell it what bootdevice, file, etc..
HOWEVER, you need to set the reset button to HALT rather than RESET.  That
way, if you ever need to get to the SRM later, you can.

Also, updating the firmware from SRM is slightly different (as there's no
update program built in).  There's a mkboot.exe (you mentioned it below)
that you can download from the DEC site that will write out the fwupdate.exe
to the floppy.  It's probably just another rawrite.exe-ish clone.

Hope this helps...

Jeremy Huber

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Anselmi" <anselmi at americanisp.net>
To: "clue tech list" <clue-tech at clue.denver.co.us>
Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2001 11:13 PM
Subject: [CLUE-Tech] Alpha bios info.


> Here's what I've found about flashing the AS255's bios.  Not that it's
> helped much.
>
> There are 2 bios consoles for the alpha, SRM and ARC/Alphabios.  The
> first understands BSD disklables and the second understands DOS
> partition tables.  They are for booting to Digital Unix or NT,
> respectively.  Some alphas have both in their bios, but the 255 can only
> hold one.  Milo works with both, aboot only works with SRM.
>
> At the advice of the debian install guide (for woody), I decided to
> upgrade the bios.  We likely have a recent rev - Alphabios 5.68 is the
> latest out.  Debian also suggests using SRM, since milo may not be
> available in a recent form.
>
> I've made the update floppy and run it.  I've made a bootable version of
> the same floppy and run that.  Both work to get me to a screen with 3
> menu options, but there doesn't seem to be a way to do anything at that
> point.  All the mail I've read says I should be able to upgrade the bios
> and pick SRM or Alphabios.
>
> Interestingly, you can boot from either bios console to several boot
> devices, though SRM seems more flexible.  So I don't really need to
> change the bios.  The switch inside (S2) that says 'boot from floppy'
> means skip the bios console and boot from the floppy.  So if you mess up
> the bios, you can still run the update program to fix it.
>
> If anyone has any ideas how to get this update program to work, I'd be
> happy to hear...
>
> Here are some links:
>
> http://gatekeeper.dec.com/pub/DEC/Alpha/firmware/readmes/astn255.html -
> this is where you get the latest bios update, as255_v8_1.exe.  There's
> only one file but there are different ways to run it.  For Alphabios,
> put it on a FAT floppy as fwupdate.exe and run it from the bios menu.
>
>
http://gatekeeper.dec.com/pub/DEC/Alpha/firmware/readmes/utilities/mkboot.tx
t
> - this tells you about the mkboot program, that you can use to put the
> above update file on an alpha bootable disk (from DOS/Win).  The update
> file has to be renamed to fit 8.3 or the program won't recognize it.
> Actually it makes any program bootable, so it might be useful with a
> kernel too.
>
>
http://www.uni-koeln.de/RRZK/systeme/dec/DEC-MANAGERS/1997/Januar-html/msg00
041.html
> - this is the best summary I found of the issues.
>
> Dave
>
>
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