Fail-Safe Booter - DEC AlphaPC 164 User Manual

8.3 Fail-Safe Booter

The fail-safe booter provides an emergency recovery mechanism when the primary
firmware image contained in flash memory has been corrupted. When flash memory
has been corrupted, such that no image is safely loaded from the flash, the fail-safe
booter can be run to facilitate booting another image from a diskette that is capable
of reprogramming the flash.
Starting the Fail-Safe Booter
The fail-safe booter can be started in one of two ways:
•
If the primary firmware image is unavailable when the system is powered on or
reset, the fail-safe booter automatically runs. When the fail-safe booter runs, the
system emits a series of beeps through the speaker as beep code 1-2-3, that is,
one beep and a pause followed by two beeps and a pause followed by three
beeps. Then the diskette activity light flashes. To start the firmware update util-
ity, the user must insert the Update and Windows NT 3.51 Firmware diskette
containing the file FWUPDATE.EXE.
•
The fail-safe booter can also be started manually as follows:
1. Add jumper CF7 as described in Section 3.6.
2. Insert the Update and Windows NT 3.51 Firmware diskette into the diskette
drive.
3. Proceed to Section 7.6 and follow the procedures.
40 Troubleshooting