How do I create a DOS boot CD-ROM for bios upgrade?

[Van Halen Man]

I need to upgrade my bios via CD-ROM, and I can't figure out how to create a bootable CD-ROM for the job. Any help here would be great. THanks.

 

[jitpublisher]

I would certainly never suggest trying to update your BIOS from a CD. During a BIOS update, your old BIOS is copied first and written to the drive, in other words you need to do the update from a writable drive. If you don't have a floppy drive, I would highly suggest you spend $10 and buy one and use it for your BIOS update. I have had good success using some manufacturers Window's version of the updater, although I do prefer the old DOS-only method. Anyway, it does require you to use a drive that is writable during the update. You may be able to get away with it, but updating your BIOS can very easlily leave you with a dead motherboard if it's not done correctly. FACT. It happens to people all the time.

 

[Zenthar]

Newer boards have a built-in BIOS flash utility accessible from the boot screen (like BIOS settings) and can access USB keys; might be less of a waste to get a USB key than a floppy.

 

[lambofgode3x]

usb is just as good as floppy, but faster...i killed my 2900xt by flashing from cd because i couldnt save my original bios and i had an unsuccessful flash. floppy is ok if you can stand the slow read and write times.

 

[Van Halen Man]

Oh, I didn't know that it could be done with a flash drive. How do I do that?

 

[Zenthar]

Depends on the board, what MB do you have.

As an example, this is the intruction for Gigabyte's Q-Flash utility.

 

[Van Halen Man]

It is an Asus P4S8X-MX

 

[Zenthar]

Your board has EZ-Flash, which is kind of like Q-Flash, but I don't know if it supports USB keys. Take a look at page 2-3 of your user manual for instructions (or here for pdf); it seems you have to press <ALT>+<F2> at boot to enter EZ-Flash.

 

[Shadow703793]

USB DOS-
http://www.bootdisk.com/pendrive.htm
http://blogs.oreilly.com/digitalmedia/2004/10/utility-to-make-usb-flash-driv.html
http://www.gamebeat.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1057

 

[Van Halen Man]

Ok, well, it doesn't seem like I am able to boot from USB, so what is this EZ-Flash thing and how do I use it?

 

[Zenthar]

Ok, well, it doesn't seem like I am able to boot from USB, so what is this EZ-Flash thing and how do I use it?

Answer:

Take a look at page 2-3 of your user manual for instructions (or here for pdf); it seems you have to press <ALT>+<F2> at boot to enter EZ-Flash.

If you cannot boot from USB, EZ-Flash might not be able to see the USB key either...

 

[Van Halen Man]

Ok, well EZ-Flash can't boot from USB either. It says checking floppy, then once it realizes there is not floppy, it says checking CD-ROM. Is upgrading from a CD-ROM using EZ-Flash STILL a bad idea? Becuase I REALLY don't want to upgrade with a floppy drive....

 

[Zenthar]

Ok, well EZ-Flash can't boot from USB either. It says checking floppy, then once it realizes there is not floppy, it says checking CD-ROM. Is upgrading from a CD-ROM using EZ-Flash STILL a bad idea? Becuase I REALLY don't want to upgrade with a floppy drive....

I'm not sure it's THAT much of a problem, but if you have no way of backing-up the current BIOS, if the new flash fail, you might be the proud owner of a motherboard-shaped-brick.

 

[Van Halen Man]

I got the motherboard from a friend and he upgraded the bios when HE had it, and he gave me a disk that had the original bios and the current so that should be alright.

 

[Zenthar]

Make sure all the BIOSes are on the CD because if the flash fails, you must not reboot.

 

[Shadow703793]

Quick question: Was the Flash drive formatted with FAT32? If you use NTDS it will fail.