[ale] Defective BIOS?

[Calvin Harrigan]

Cor van Dijk wrote:

> One of my older machines has  windows  on /dev/hda and redhat on 
> /dev/hdd. It suddenly refused to boot the /dev/hda. Will only boot 
> redhat from a floppy. When I do "/sbin/lilo -t" it tells me
>        "Warning: BIOS drive 0x82 may not be accessible"
> Initially I thought it was the physical drive, so I tried 3 (three) 
> different
> drives on /dev/hda, all with the same result, so I am tending to 
> believe that the problem is actually were the message says that it is, 
> in the BIOS.
> When I try to put the boot record on /dev/hdd I get the same message.
> Replacing the 3 volt battery does no good (old one still had over 3 
> volt after nine years!)
> Curious thing is that I can mount /dev/hda from /dev/hdd just fine.
> Does the BIOS prevent me from accessing the boot sector in /dev/hda?
> The mobo is probably a pirated item from china, but the BIOS chip is 
> an AWARD, and is  probably tailored to fit the mobo, might be hard to 
> find a replacement.
> Any pointers? What is BIOS drive 0x82? Is it actually the BIOS? Can it 
> be fixed?
> Thanks in advance for any help. Cor van Dijk
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Do bios(e{s}) just up an go bad?  Wouldn't it fail checksum on boot up?  
I would clear the bios by taking out the battery and let it sit 
overnight(unplugged as well).  The settings might have gotten fowled 
up.  Then set everything up from scratch again.  Given the age of the 
board I'm not sure if it supports it, but there might be boot sector 
protection turned on in the bios.

Calvin...