Flashing BIOS with a floppy disk?

[jimkselsf]

how can I copy a 4 mg qflash file to a 1.44 mb floppy to update my bios? my mobo is a gigabyte h61n-usb3. i have been struggling to update my bios via a pen drive without luck. The flash utility keeps saying "no drive found" no matter where i plug it to. The best I encountered was when I plugged in an external floppy drive and the flash utility detected it, but the flash file is too big (around 4 MB) to be copied to the floppy disk. I have read somewhere that when the utility failed to detect the pen drive, someone copied the flash file to a floppy disk and was successfully update the bios. Too bad the guy didn't say how did he fit a 4 mb file into a 1.44 mb diskette. I have tried different pen drive and formatted (not quick format) with fat32. USB Storage was also enabled in BIOS.
I was told not to use @BIOS to flash it in Windows as it may screwed up the os. But if I find no other solution with the QFlash, then may be that's the route I'll take. Please help.

 

[sna]

how can I copy a 4 mg qflash file to a 1.44 mb floppy to update my bios? my mobo is a gigabyte h61n-usb3. i have been struggling to update my bios via a pen drive without luck. The flash utility keeps saying "no drive found" no matter where i plug it to. The best I encountered was when I plugged in an external floppy drive and the flash utility detected it, but the flash file is too big (around 4 MB) to be copied to the floppy disk. I have read somewhere that when the utility failed to detect the pen drive, someone copied the flash file to a floppy disk and was successfully update the bios. Too bad the guy didn't say how did he fit a 4 mb file into a 1.44 mb diskette. I have tried different pen drive and formatted (not quick format) with fat32. USB Storage was also enabled in BIOS.
I was told not to use @BIOS to flash it in Windows as it may screwed up the os. But if I find no other solution with the QFlash, then may be that's the route I'll take. Please help.

flashing bios is easy , they are .exe files and automated . why do you want to flash it from a floppy?

 

[ajhockey3]

how can I copy a 4 mg qflash file to a 1.44 mb floppy to update my bios? my mobo is a gigabyte h61n-usb3. i have been struggling to update my bios via a pen drive without luck. The flash utility keeps saying "no drive found" no matter where i plug it to. The best I encountered was when I plugged in an external floppy drive and the flash utility detected it, but the flash file is too big (around 4 MB) to be copied to the floppy disk. I have read somewhere that when the utility failed to detect the pen drive, someone copied the flash file to a floppy disk and was successfully update the bios. Too bad the guy didn't say how did he fit a 4 mb file into a 1.44 mb diskette. I have tried different pen drive and formatted (not quick format) with fat32. USB Storage was also enabled in BIOS.
I was told not to use @BIOS to flash it in Windows as it may screwed up the os. But if I find no other solution with the QFlash, then may be that's the route I'll take. Please help.

flashing bios is easy , they are .exe files and automated . why do you want to flash it from a floppy?

Lots of cheaper motherboards don't support that, Esspecially of the H61 era

 

[USAFRet]

To flash the BIOS, you do it exactly how the manufacturer says, no exceptions. Unless, of course, you want a bricked motherboard.

And only if it is actually needed.

 

[Digmeahole]

If your motherboard bios is 4mb you must have the ability to boot to a flash drive. If not you can use a cd rom.

Follow USAFRet answer and go to your mb site and read the flash instructions.

 

[sna]

how can I copy a 4 mg qflash file to a 1.44 mb floppy to update my bios? my mobo is a gigabyte h61n-usb3. i have been struggling to update my bios via a pen drive without luck. The flash utility keeps saying "no drive found" no matter where i plug it to. The best I encountered was when I plugged in an external floppy drive and the flash utility detected it, but the flash file is too big (around 4 MB) to be copied to the floppy disk. I have read somewhere that when the utility failed to detect the pen drive, someone copied the flash file to a floppy disk and was successfully update the bios. Too bad the guy didn't say how did he fit a 4 mb file into a 1.44 mb diskette. I have tried different pen drive and formatted (not quick format) with fat32. USB Storage was also enabled in BIOS.
I was told not to use @BIOS to flash it in Windows as it may screwed up the os. But if I find no other solution with the QFlash, then may be that's the route I'll take. Please help.

flashing bios is easy , they are .exe files and automated . why do you want to flash it from a floppy?

Lots of cheaper motherboards don't support that, Esspecially of the H61 era

Core2 duo ERA had automated bios flashing.

anyways maybe he wants to hackintosh 😛

 

[ajhockey3]

how can I copy a 4 mg qflash file to a 1.44 mb floppy to update my bios? my mobo is a gigabyte h61n-usb3. i have been struggling to update my bios via a pen drive without luck. The flash utility keeps saying "no drive found" no matter where i plug it to. The best I encountered was when I plugged in an external floppy drive and the flash utility detected it, but the flash file is too big (around 4 MB) to be copied to the floppy disk. I have read somewhere that when the utility failed to detect the pen drive, someone copied the flash file to a floppy disk and was successfully update the bios. Too bad the guy didn't say how did he fit a 4 mb file into a 1.44 mb diskette. I have tried different pen drive and formatted (not quick format) with fat32. USB Storage was also enabled in BIOS.
I was told not to use @BIOS to flash it in Windows as it may screwed up the os. But if I find no other solution with the QFlash, then may be that's the route I'll take. Please help.

flashing bios is easy , they are .exe files and automated . why do you want to flash it from a floppy?

Lots of cheaper motherboards don't support that, Esspecially of the H61 era

Core2 duo ERA had automated bios flashing.

anyways maybe he wants to hackintosh 😛

Back in my day we had to update the bios in DOS! 😛

 

[USAFRet]

how can I copy a 4 mg qflash file to a 1.44 mb floppy to update my bios? my mobo is a gigabyte h61n-usb3. i have been struggling to update my bios via a pen drive without luck. The flash utility keeps saying "no drive found" no matter where i plug it to. The best I encountered was when I plugged in an external floppy drive and the flash utility detected it, but the flash file is too big (around 4 MB) to be copied to the floppy disk. I have read somewhere that when the utility failed to detect the pen drive, someone copied the flash file to a floppy disk and was successfully update the bios. Too bad the guy didn't say how did he fit a 4 mb file into a 1.44 mb diskette. I have tried different pen drive and formatted (not quick format) with fat32. USB Storage was also enabled in BIOS.
I was told not to use @BIOS to flash it in Windows as it may screwed up the os. But if I find no other solution with the QFlash, then may be that's the route I'll take. Please help.

flashing bios is easy , they are .exe files and automated . why do you want to flash it from a floppy?

Lots of cheaper motherboards don't support that, Esspecially of the H61 era

Core2 duo ERA had automated bios flashing.

anyways maybe he wants to hackintosh 😛

Back in my day we had to update the bios in DOS! 😛

Umm....back in my day, the BIOS was controlled by DIP switches...

 

[sna]

how can I copy a 4 mg qflash file to a 1.44 mb floppy to update my bios? my mobo is a gigabyte h61n-usb3. i have been struggling to update my bios via a pen drive without luck. The flash utility keeps saying "no drive found" no matter where i plug it to. The best I encountered was when I plugged in an external floppy drive and the flash utility detected it, but the flash file is too big (around 4 MB) to be copied to the floppy disk. I have read somewhere that when the utility failed to detect the pen drive, someone copied the flash file to a floppy disk and was successfully update the bios. Too bad the guy didn't say how did he fit a 4 mb file into a 1.44 mb diskette. I have tried different pen drive and formatted (not quick format) with fat32. USB Storage was also enabled in BIOS.
I was told not to use @BIOS to flash it in Windows as it may screwed up the os. But if I find no other solution with the QFlash, then may be that's the route I'll take. Please help.

flashing bios is easy , they are .exe files and automated . why do you want to flash it from a floppy?

Lots of cheaper motherboards don't support that, Esspecially of the H61 era

Core2 duo ERA had automated bios flashing.

anyways maybe he wants to hackintosh 😛

Back in my day we had to update the bios in DOS! 😛

Umm....back in my day, the BIOS was controlled by DIP switches...

hahahaha ....

my first PC as a KID was Amiga 2000 .. you ?

 

[ajhockey3]

Commodore 64

 

[jimkselsf]

Thanks everyone for your inputs. BTW my present BIOS version is F3. As I was saying, I was struggling to flash it with the pen drive following all kinds instructions put forth in the MB's manual and all forums, it returns a "no drive found" every time. But it did recognize my external floppy drive when plugged in.
Why do I want to flash the BIOS? This computer was given by my son. It has Win 7 installed but I want to run Adobe's PageMaker 6.5 which only compatible with Win XP. I ran into the famous BSOD every time when I tried to install XP, even though I set ACHI to IDE, hit F6 during setup, started from fresh by replacing the SSD with the Win 7 on it, all without help. I was desperate and think maybe the BIOS is too old and incompatible.
I did flash the BIOS years ago on another computer. But it has been so long that I forgot the procedures.

 

[USAFRet]

Thanks everyone for your inputs. BTW my present BIOS version is F3. As I was saying, I was struggling to flash it with the pen drive following all kinds instructions put forth in the MB's manual and all forums, it returns a "no drive found" every time. But it did recognize my external floppy drive when plugged in.
Why do I want to flash the BIOS? This computer was given by my son. It has Win 7 installed but I want to run Adobe's PageMaker 6.5 which only compatible with Win XP. I ran into the famous BSOD every time when I tried to install XP, even though I set ACHI to IDE, hit F6 during setup, started from fresh by replacing the SSD with the Win 7 on it, all without help. I was desperate and think maybe the BIOS is too old and incompatible.
I did flash the BIOS years ago on another computer. But it has been so long that I forgot the procedures.

No need to try to change the BIOS to run XP.
Look into compatibility mode for XP under Win 7, or run your XP instance in a VM. VirtualBox, or VMWare.

Or do something completely different than the ancient Pagemaker.

 

[jimkselsf]

Thanks everyone for your inputs. BTW my present BIOS version is F3. As I was saying, I was struggling to flash it with the pen drive following all kinds instructions put forth in the MB's manual and all forums, it returns a "no drive found" every time. But it did recognize my external floppy drive when plugged in.
Why do I want to flash the BIOS? This computer was given by my son. It has Win 7 installed but I want to run Adobe's PageMaker 6.5 which only compatible with Win XP. I ran into the famous BSOD every time when I tried to install XP, even though I set ACHI to IDE, hit F6 during setup, started from fresh by replacing the SSD with the Win 7 on it, all without help. I was desperate and think maybe the BIOS is too old and incompatible.
I did flash the BIOS years ago on another computer. But it has been so long that I forgot the procedures.

No need to try to change the BIOS to run XP.
Look into compatibility mode for XP under Win 7, or run your XP instance in a VM. VirtualBox, or VMWare.

Or do something completely different than the ancient Pagemaker.

 

[jimkselsf]

Thank you USARet. I know Adobe InDesign took over the ancient PageMaker, but it's too expensive and, I have been using PageMaker all these years and it's all I need. I think that I did try the compatibility mode for XP under Win 7 before without any luck. I'll try to find out how to run XP in a VM as I have never done it before.
Meanwhile I still stuck with the "no drive found" issue when flashing Gigabyte's mobo, and wondering how that guy in Overclock.net's forum did it with the floppy disk.

 

[sna]

how can I copy a 4 mg qflash file to a 1.44 mb floppy to update my bios? my mobo is a gigabyte h61n-usb3. i have been struggling to update my bios via a pen drive without luck. The flash utility keeps saying "no drive found" no matter where i plug it to. The best I encountered was when I plugged in an external floppy drive and the flash utility detected it, but the flash file is too big (around 4 MB) to be copied to the floppy disk. I have read somewhere that when the utility failed to detect the pen drive, someone copied the flash file to a floppy disk and was successfully update the bios. Too bad the guy didn't say how did he fit a 4 mb file into a 1.44 mb diskette. I have tried different pen drive and formatted (not quick format) with fat32. USB Storage was also enabled in BIOS.
I was told not to use @BIOS to flash it in Windows as it may screwed up the os. But if I find no other solution with the QFlash, then may be that's the route I'll take. Please help.

can you give me a link to that forum thread?

 

[sna]

Quote from Qflash PDF :

Extract the file and save the new BIOS file (e.g. EP45DS5.F1) to your floppy disk, USB flash drive,
or hard drive. Note: The USB flash drive or hard drive must use FAT32/16/12 file system.

3.Restart the system. During the POST, press the <End> key to enter Q-Flash. Note: You can
access Q-Flash by either pressing the <End> key during the POST or pressing the <F8> key in
BIOS Setup. However, if the BIOS update file is saved to a hard drive in RAID/AHCI mode or a hard
drive attached to an independent IDE/SATA controller, use the <End> key during the POST to
access Q-Flash

did you try the <end> key ???

there is no need at all to use floppy ... you can put the file on external usb harddisk , usb3 , or any harddisk , formatted in Fat32.

another thing , does Qflash read compressed files ? if yes the file can fit on floppy compressed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFLRCwhjujM

 

[jimkselsf]

Quote from Qflash PDF :

Extract the file and save the new BIOS file (e.g. EP45DS5.F1) to your floppy disk, USB flash drive,
or hard drive. Note: The USB flash drive or hard drive must use FAT32/16/12 file system.

3.Restart the system. During the POST, press the <End> key to enter Q-Flash. Note: You can
access Q-Flash by either pressing the <End> key during the POST or pressing the <F8> key in
BIOS Setup. However, if the BIOS update file is saved to a hard drive in RAID/AHCI mode or a hard
drive attached to an independent IDE/SATA controller, use the <End> key during the POST to
access Q-Flash

did you try the <end> key ???

there is no need at all to use floppy ... you can put the file on external usb harddisk , usb3 , or any harddisk , formatted in Fat32.

another thing , does Qflash read compressed files ? if yes the file can fit on floppy compressed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFLRCwhjujM

 

[jimkselsf]

Thanks Sna. I've just formatted the last portion (1.9GB) of my SSD to FAT32, copy the 3 flash files to it, reboot, hit F8, same result: No Drive Found!
Qflashdoes not read compressed files.
Maybe it's just like you said,"Lots of cheaper motherboards don't support that, Esspecially of the H61 era". If that's the case, this H61N-usb3 mobo doesn't worth a damn?

 

[jimkselsf]

how can I copy a 4 mg qflash file to a 1.44 mb floppy to update my bios? my mobo is a gigabyte h61n-usb3. i have been struggling to update my bios via a pen drive without luck. The flash utility keeps saying "no drive found" no matter where i plug it to. The best I encountered was when I plugged in an external floppy drive and the flash utility detected it, but the flash file is too big (around 4 MB) to be copied to the floppy disk. I have read somewhere that when the utility failed to detect the pen drive, someone copied the flash file to a floppy disk and was successfully update the bios. Too bad the guy didn't say how did he fit a 4 mb file into a 1.44 mb diskette. I have tried different pen drive and formatted (not quick format) with fat32. USB Storage was also enabled in BIOS.
I was told not to use @BIOS to flash it in Windows as it may screwed up the os. But if I find no other solution with the QFlash, then may be that's the route I'll take. Please help.

can you give me a link to that forum thread?

 

[sna]

Thanks Sna. I've just formatted the last portion (1.9GB) of my SSD to FAT32, copy the 3 flash files to it, reboot, hit F8, same result: No Drive Found!
Qflashdoes not read compressed files.
Maybe it's just like you said,"Lots of cheaper motherboards don't support that, Esspecially of the H61 era". If that's the case, this H61N-usb3 mobo doesn't worth a damn?

did you try all the usb ports available ?

try all of them.

 

[jimkselsf]

Here's the link, sna:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1016479/solved-q-flash-not-picking-up-my-usb

It was posted by Rowey who said: "Done it now mate, i found a external floppy drive and flashed it with that, worked like a charm. Now using F10 instead of F4."

 

[sna]

Here's the link, sna:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1016479/solved-q-flash-not-picking-up-my-usb

It was posted by Rowey who said: "Done it now mate, i found a external floppy drive and flashed it with that, worked like a charm. Now using F10 instead of F4."

there are floppy drive emulators that can take usb flash in them and act like a floppy. the floppy in this case will be the size of the flash drive and not 1.4 M any more ..

but buying it is not a solution , coz you can buy another mobo better than this.

now I think you need to enable USB in bios , look in peripherals options.

 

[sna]

go to the BIOS,

then

Integrated Peripherals, turn on all :

USB Controllers

USB Legacy Function,

USB Storage Function

then try a formatted FAT32 usb stick.

also if this did not work , get any old harddisk , and format it ALL FAT32 and put the bios files on it then remove all other harddisks and put this one only , no need to have system on it.

then boot into bios and see if it will update from it.

 

[jimkselsf]

go to the BIOS,

then

Integrated Peripherals, turn on all :

USB Controllers

USB Legacy Function,

USB Storage Function

then try a formatted FAT32 usb stick.

also if this did not work , get any old harddisk , and format it ALL FAT32 and put the bios files on it then remove all other harddisks and put this one only , no need to have system on it.

then boot into bios and see if it will update from it.

 

[jimkselsf]

Thanks again sna. I've already tried all those steps before I got in this forum. As I was saying, I formatted the last small portion (1.9gb) of my solid state disk with the fat32 file system, copied the two flash files to it (for some reason Win 7 didn't show the autoexec.bat file which is supposed to be the 3rd file). The very first time after this, I pressed F8 qflash in bios, it returned a "no drive found" again. The second time I hit the "end" key during POST instead, the flash utility show "HDD-00", when I hit the "enter" key, it said "disk access error". Did I miss something?