[ale] Sunday 05-22-05 6PM RUN-AS-ROOT CHALLENGE

[Geoffrey]

Jason Day wrote:
> On Thu, May 19, 2005 at 12:40:52AM -0400, Jim Popovitch wrote:
> 
>>>	- flashable hardware is still flashable.  Sure, some of them
>>>	  have worked around their issues, but does it make sense to
>>>	  assume they all have?  Nope.
>>
>>re-flashing is like fsck'ing.  IT IS NOT DESTRUCTIBLE.

I can write a piece of code that will trash the bios.  I'm not talking 
about flashing new code.  The bios won't even begin to start, thus you 
can't reflash it because the box is DEAD.

> 
> 
> I don't think I've ever heard anyone make this claim before.  Every
> re-flashing guide I've ever read has warned that if power is interrupted
> during the re-flashing process you will either have a very expensive
> paper weight or you will have to return the unit to the factory.  I
> don't do a lot of re-flashing, so I don't know; maybe newer hardware can
> recover from a corrupt flash attempt, but I wouldn't assume that any
> hardware could.  I know for a fact that my Rio Volt can't.

He does not have a reasonable understanding of what is done during a 
bios reflash.

-- 
Until later, Geoffrey