Maybe this will help someone. I went to update the BIOS on my MSI Tomahawk Max II Motherboard. This was about the fourth time I have done it, so I was familiar with the process. When I got into the MFLASH session, the BIOS refused to update. I got the message shown in picture #1:
The error "The BIOS is not MSI BIOS, update will be ignore!!!" (sic) was mentioned several times by people looking for help in the MSI forums, but there were no real answers...just recommendations like "make sure you format with Rufus" or "reload Windows."
I contacted MSI, and they were stumped. They suggested that I should reset the CMOS (I did) or wait for the next BIOS update (I didn't) - since I tried several to see if the file was bad. The only thing they didn't tell me to do was reset my modem.
I had noticed that the BIOS file I brought in had "PFILE" appended to it. This PFILE appendix was not on the file after I unzipped it. It only showed up inside the MFLASH module. I told the MSI tech about this and they did not know what it was. I was pretty sure I had never seen this extension when updating the BIOS before (see picture #2). It made no sense, because the extension was not on the file before I copied it to the USB, and it didn't show up on the USB drive, either. It only showed up on the MFLASH screen.
How I solved the problem:
I muddled it over for a day, and then it hit me. About a year before (and after my last BIOS update), I had enabled encryption on some of my folders. I thought that the encryption might have done something to the files to make them act this way. As a test, I unzipped a new copy of the BIOS on a drive without encryption enabled. Put it on the USB stick, got into MFLASH, and it worked fine (The PFILE extension was gone).
I appreciate all the help I have ever gotten from Tom's Hardware, so I made this account to post this thank you, and hopefully someone with a similar weird problem will find it.
The error "The BIOS is not MSI BIOS, update will be ignore!!!" (sic) was mentioned several times by people looking for help in the MSI forums, but there were no real answers...just recommendations like "make sure you format with Rufus" or "reload Windows."
I contacted MSI, and they were stumped. They suggested that I should reset the CMOS (I did) or wait for the next BIOS update (I didn't) - since I tried several to see if the file was bad. The only thing they didn't tell me to do was reset my modem.
I had noticed that the BIOS file I brought in had "PFILE" appended to it. This PFILE appendix was not on the file after I unzipped it. It only showed up inside the MFLASH module. I told the MSI tech about this and they did not know what it was. I was pretty sure I had never seen this extension when updating the BIOS before (see picture #2). It made no sense, because the extension was not on the file before I copied it to the USB, and it didn't show up on the USB drive, either. It only showed up on the MFLASH screen.
How I solved the problem:
I muddled it over for a day, and then it hit me. About a year before (and after my last BIOS update), I had enabled encryption on some of my folders. I thought that the encryption might have done something to the files to make them act this way. As a test, I unzipped a new copy of the BIOS on a drive without encryption enabled. Put it on the USB stick, got into MFLASH, and it worked fine (The PFILE extension was gone).
I appreciate all the help I have ever gotten from Tom's Hardware, so I made this account to post this thank you, and hopefully someone with a similar weird problem will find it.
Last edited:
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram