Flash your bios on a pc with no floppy drive

Written by www.bootdisk.com

Sunday, 03 October 2004

Ok, seriously who includes 1.44 floppys in computers anymore? I know when I am building new computers, I don't include them anymore. With USB Thumbdrives, CDRWs, and DVDRs so cheap anymore, it doesn't make any sense to transfer files via the old-school floppy. Which is all well and good until you need to flash the bios of the motherboard, and the manufacturer didn't include a windows apps to do it. So what are you to do? Well this article will show you how to create a bootable cdrom and flash your bios with it! flashcd.iso is an image of a bootable dr-dos 7 cd. In order to make it usable to also handle your bios flash files it has a cdrom driver and mscdex.exe loaded. What you will be doing is adding your bios flashing program and bios file to the .iso and then burning the .iso to cd. BEGIN WARNING The best way to flash a bios is using a clean booting 1.44 floppy disk but lots of pcs are built these days where the manufacturer thought it was a a cool idea not to include one. If you have another pc with a floppy drive, you should really first try copying your bios flash files to a clean, bootable dos floppy and then burning a boot cd from the boot floppy that contains the flash utilities and using that cd on your floppyless pc. Or better yet, see if you can add a floppy disk to your pc. If the above are not options then using this util and instructions is another way to address your dilemma. Please be aware of the possible implications of flashing before you proceed and ALSO make sure that: 1. The bios flash upgrade from your motherboard maker actually addresses the problem you are trying to solve. 2. You make a backup of your bios which you should be able to do on your hard drive but also save the backup to a cd so you can get to it later with a bootable cd such as this. END WARNING First download the Base image of the bootable cd. There are 2 files in this zippack, this readme and the flashcd.iso file. If you just burn the .iso as a test you'll see the bootfiles as drive A: What you are going to do is add your bios flash files to flashcd.iso and then burn your bootable cd which will include your bios files which will be seen in drive R: I'd also add the bios backup file you made. I use UltraISO to do this. It's a free trial. www.ezbsystems.com To add bios files: File | Open | Select flashcd.iso | Open | Image windows shows bootable | Select your bios files in the lower window | Drag to the top window | File | Save Note that oddly, the file size of flashcd.iso may not change. To burn: File | Open | Click on flashcd.iso | Open | You'll see your bios flash files on the right | Tools | Burn Also note that if using another program it's best to use the same program to copy files to the .iso and use the same program to burn the modified .iso When you boot with the cd the startup files will be seen as drive A: and the bios files will be seen as drive R: Keep in mind that adding files to an .iso is still a new science. Also use a good brand of media. ______________________________________________ Kindest regards Ed Jablonowski (www.bootdisk.com)

Last Updated ( Monday, 13 February 2006 )