bios flashing from a cdr, why is this bad?

[bigshooter]

So i was just going to look for or make a bootable image on cd, and then flash my epox 8kha+ with that. (i got a WD 2000JB, but it can't see the whole drive =( ) I started looking for an image though, and i noticed a lot of peopel warn against flashing off cd. Why is that? Why would it be any different from flashing from a floppy?

 

[techfuzz]

People warning against flashing off a cd? I find that hard to believe people. Come on, what are you going to do when the next computer you buy doesn't have a floppy drive? Are you going to go out an buy a floppy drive just to flash your BIOS? I hope not!

Pros to flashing from CDROM:
- Faster disk access
- CD's more reliable and sturdy than floppy disks
- Floppy drives/disks being phased out by major OEM's already

techfuzz

 

[Lord Evermore]

I suppose the addition of CDROM drivers on the boot disk introduces one more possibility of something having an error and causing a bad flash, but I've done it several times from CD (just add the newest image file to the disc each time) and had no problems. I'd almost say it's more reliable than a floppy, given how crappy floppy disks are lately.

The removal of floppy drives by OEMs isn't really anything to consider. OEMs don't WANT you flashing your BIOS yourself.

 

[Dahak]

Probably the main reason why they dont recomend flashing from a cdr is becasue you cannot backup your current bios file to it. Altho I have flashed numerous boards with out any problems. I still like to backup the current one on the board just incase

Dahak

 

[Lord Evermore]

That's what the hard drive is for. Or a floppy disk that you didn't have to boot from.

Besides, the current BIOS version can usually be downloaded from the same place you got the new one; the existing BIOS isn't any different from that.

 

[abaez]

I thought it was because the cdrom drivers load into memory and you shouldn't flash with any memory resident programs...?

 

[mrzed]

Slightly on topic - but I noticed that my new MSI board specifically recommends NOT flashing from either floppy or CD, but copying the files to a hard drive.

Makes sense to me. The possibility of read errors from either one might be small. But the consequences would not be.

 

[sharkeeper]

I flashed from a RAID0 array of four 75GXP disks. On the LAST BLOCK of the flash, program freezes, drive 2 starts hissing, clicking, grinding, etc. Guess what? Had to do a hot flash with another mobo. To add insult to injury, the BIOS chip was plugged back in upside down and burned up! I had to call Jack at badflash.com to order a replacement.

Summary: Flashing at 5:41 AM on New Year's Day after you've had 6 glasses of punch that would run a top fuel dragster is a baaaad idea.

Cheers!

 

[sunkim50]

Flashing isn't something that should be taken too lightly.. it can do serious damage if you get a bad flash. Therefore, I think people don't want you to flash directly off a CD for 2 reasons as mentioned above.

1) Chance of a read error off of your CDR (I don't care how good you think your drive is... you can still get bad burns)

2) DOS CD-drivers are loaded into the memory and I do believe flashing without anything loaded is recommended to minimize the risk of anything bad happened

 

[Lord Evermore]

It's impossible to flash with nothing in memory, so it's not vastly terrible to have the drivers loaded. They're just one more thing that could crash, but really, how many people have ever had a CDROM driver cause a system to crash.

 

[kursplat]

the day I started flashed a bios from WITHIN windows while online with the MB mfg is the day i stopped worrying too much about it.

edit:

Summary: Flashing at 5:41 AM on New Year's Day after you've had 6 glasses of punch that would run a top fuel dragster is a baaaad idea.

dude , 2004 , i'll bring the floppys and the blender...