anyone know how I can get XP to boot to dos without a floppy? UPDATE: the deed is done

[rudeguy]

I have a program that needs to be ran from dos, which wouldnt be a problem, except I dont have a floppy. Any help is appreciated.

 

[monzie]

Will DOSBox do it...primarily for games but who knows?

http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/download.php?main=1

Whats the software?

 

[rudeguy]

Originally posted by: monzie
Will DOSBox do it...primarily for games but who knows?

http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/download.php?main=1

Whats the software?

trying to flash my bios

 

[DaveSimmons]

You could get a USB flash drive, or try to find a bootable CD ISO if you have at least one FAT16 / FAT32 partition to copy the flash program to.

 

[Drakkon]

usb flash drive = bad idea...last time i did that in the process of bios flashing it caused the USB port to reintialize and needless to say ruin the transfer. Definately would go the bootable CD route.

http://www.nu2.nu/bootcd/

 

[BFG10K]

When I flash my BIOS I use my old Windows 98SE boot disk. There are places on the 'net where you can download images of old boot disks.

Also you should investigate Windows flashing as a lot of newer motherboards support it.

 

[EeyoreX]

When I flash my BIOS I use my old Windows 98SE boot disk. There are places on the 'net where you can download images of old boot disks.

Also you should investigate Windows flashing as a lot of newer motherboards support it.

There are two somewhat conflicting pieces of advice here. The first, to get a boot disk, is silly, since he mentions he has no floppy. The second piece is great advice. I flash my BIOS within Windows, and have never had a problem. At least not yet...

\Dan

 

[rudeguy]

Originally posted by: EeyoreX

When I flash my BIOS I use my old Windows 98SE boot disk. There are places on the 'net where you can download images of old boot disks.

Also you should investigate Windows flashing as a lot of newer motherboards support it.

There are two somewhat conflicting pieces of advice here. The first, to get a boot disk, is silly, since he mentions he has no floppy. The second piece is great advice. I flash my BIOS within Windows, and have never had a problem. At least not yet...

\Dan

I doubt my ol' girl (ECS K7S5A) has that feature....does it?

 

[EeyoreX]

I doubt it. I don't recall if there is a "generic" utility that allows this. I know Abit (at some point at least) had one that sometiimes worked with other boards, but I really don't recommend trying this unless you have a stout heart. The other option is if you can boot to CD-R/W that may work. Create a bootable CD-RW with the BIOS updater on it and update that way. There is a slight risk as you have to run drivers to access the CD-ROM in DOS mode, but I have known people to use this method successfully. So, if you have a CD-R/W drive you could try that.

\Dan

 

[rudeguy]

I am making a cd with all the boot files on it now. Hope this works

I have a usb fdd, but for some reason bios wont recognize it. I enabled it in bios, but no. Hope this works!

 

[Mem]

I doubt my ol' girl (ECS K7S5A) has that feature....does it?

You should be able to use winFlash at ECS website .

 

[BFG10K]

The first, to get a boot disk, is silly, since he mentions he has no floppy.

Whoops, I misread his post a bit.

 

[rudeguy]

Originally posted by: Mem

I doubt my ol' girl (ECS K7S5A) has that feature....does it?

You should be able to use winFlash at ECS website .

looks perfect!

but it crashes everytime I start it up...you just run that while in Windows right?

 

[Mem]

I always use a floppy ,you should download How to use WinFlash Utility guide ,it does say "If your BIOS version don't support WinFlash, it will pop-up warning message as below".

 

[rudeguy]

so why cant I just boot from the windows cd to get into dos?

 

[alm4rr]

Windows XP has no DOS in it.
Flashing a bios is not something you will want to experiment with. Get a floppy and follow your bios manufacurer's explicit directions on how to do it from a floppy. DONT try and use some Windows application to flash it!!!

 

[Mem]

Get a floppy and follow your bios manufacurer's explicit directions on how to do it from a floppy. DONT try and use some Windows application to flash it!!!

I would have to agree with this statement,that`s why I`ve floppy drives on both my PCs,besides floppy drives are really cheap to buy.

 

[onelin]

I hate floppies. What's the big deal with burning a CDR or CDRW w/ a floppy image?

 

[rudeguy]

Originally posted by: onelin0
I hate floppies. What's the big deal with burning a CDR or CDRW w/ a floppy image?

will this work?

 

[alm4rr]

you'll have to load dos CD drivers

 

[BFG10K]

Yeah when it comes to flashing BIOSes it's best to use the tried & tested floppy disk method. I mean FDDs are about 10 bucks these days so there's really no good reason not to have them.

So many people are quick to get rid of them but there's no real reason to do so.

 

[rudeguy]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
Yeah when it comes to flashing BIOSes it's best to use the tried & tested floppy disk method. I mean FDDs are about 10 bucks these days so there's really no good reason not to have them.

So many people are quick to get rid of them but there's no real reason to do so.

my good reason not to have one is that I busted one of the pins on the connection on the motherboard

I finally got everything right in the bios so that it will see my usb floppy, but for some reason it wont boot off it.

 

[alm4rr]

did you modify the boot order?

 

[rudeguy]

Originally posted by: alm4rr
did you modify the boot order?

yep...even selected it manually. It says "scanning drive for startup files....ok" then nothing.

 

[alm4rr]

was it formatted to be a system disk?

In order to boot from the USB Floppy disk drive it apparently must be connected before you turn the unit on. If you connect it while the unit is booting it may not boot to it.

what bios version, too?

if it goes to command prompt, then it works... you have to type in the exe file name and the file name of the new bios update (something to that effect)