BIOS Flash on A7V266 under XP

sdausmus

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I'm trying to flash the BIOS of an Asus A7V266 motherboard to the latest revision that supports Athlon XP processors. Going through their site for instructions, I downloaded the BIOS flash file, and their AFlash utility. However, their instuctions online say to go to the DOS prompt and type "FORMAT A:/S" to create a bootable floppy without the AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files.When I try this, I get "INVALID SYSTEM PARAMETER: /S". Now, I run Windows XP, and I know that there are issues with bootable floppies, etc., so I was wondering if anyone else has encountered this, and what you've done to get by this.
 

mbetea

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ah, try double clicking the file and have a floppy in the drive, will take care of it.

well if luck is a lady, it explains why i have no luck :frown:
 

sdausmus

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You mean double-click the file (which file has yet to be determined) WHILE inputting the "FORMAT A:/S" command? This makes little sense, if that's indeed what you meant.
 

mbetea

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doh! sorry, i read his post wrong. i think it's cause xp has no dos. dos prompt and dos are two different things. go here: <A HREF="http://www.bootdisk.com" target="_new">click here big boy</A> and get download a bootdisk, put it on a floppy along with the bios files and you'll be good to go.

well if luck is a lady, it explains why i have no luck :frown:
 

sdausmus

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So you're just using a straight Windows 98 boot disk, like the one that gets created when you first install Win98, but with the BIOS Flash utility and the update file?

UPDATE: I took an old Win98 boot disk, copied AFlash to it, but when i tried copying the BIOS update file, the disk was full! WTF?

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by sdausmus on 11/17/01 02:07 AM.</EM></FONT></P>
 
G

Guest

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well does WinXP has a DOS prompt?it it does, then do this
1. open up ur dos prompt in win xp duh..
2. insert a blank floopy..delete everything inside the floopy, make sure you get a non bad sector one.
3. in the dos prompt, type sys a: and press enter
4. this should create a boot disk and copy the aflash.exe and the bios update file into the boot disk.
5. restart your computer and have your boot disk inside the floopy drive.
6. wait until A:\ prompt comes out and type aflash
7. happy flashing!
 

sdausmus

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Opened up the command prompt, inserted a blank floppy, typed "sys a:" and got this:

"'sys' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program, or batch file."

What if I created an MS-DOS Startup Disk using the option in the "format disk" command, and then copied the aflash and update file to it?

UPDATE: Well, it worked. Flashing the BIOS was actually a relatively painless experience. So now I've got the latest BIOS revision, the latest VIA 4-in-1 drivers, and my rig is now complete:

AMD Athlon 1700+ @ 1477MHz
Asus A7V-266 motherboard
512MB Crucial PC2100 DDR
Visiontek GeForce3 Ti-200
Soundblaster Live! Value

AND, I just got myself a score of 6626 in 3DMark! Woo-hoo!<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by sdausmus on 11/17/01 04:57 AM.</EM></FONT></P>