I have XP Corp Sp2 without activation , bios is Award v6.00PG (2002) and it works without any problem.
Maybe you have "Flash write Protect" somewhere in Advanced bios features disabled . As i remember , some years ago , there was some virus ? (Cih)
that write his own code into bioses
without flash protection .
h**p://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/cih.htm
You wrote:
It messes up the BIOS
I am affraid that i don't know exactly what you mean with that (maybe you mean it reset clock/date , other bios settings to default and similar stuff ) ?