Unable to boot - BIOS Corrupted ?? How do I flash/reset BIOS? [duplicate]

Unable to boot - BIOS Corrupted ?? How do I flash/reset BIOS? [duplicate]

I have a older ACER Travelmate 290 (manufactured in 2002 or 2003), which I recently tried to upgrade to Ubuntu 9.10. After doing the upgrade process it appeared as if I had a problem with my x server configuration, as on the first reboot post-install I heard the Ubuntu startup sound, but had a black screen. I thought I would then reboot again to drop down into text-mode to trouble shoot the x configuration problem.