Can you flash your bios without a floppy?

[Ganryu]

I built my new computer somewhat legacy free, without a floppy drive. I'd like to know if there is someway to flash the bios (asus p4b266-c) without having a disk.

Thanks

 

[stevewm]

Yes, you can.

It depends on what OS you are using, if using any 9x OS just copy the flasher and bios file to the root of the drive, hit F8 when it says Starting Windows and pick option 6 for "Safe Mode Command Line"

If using Win2k/XP you'll need a bootable DOS CD-ROM, http://www.bootdisk.com has some boot images you can use to burn a bootable CD. Use the Win98 Startup Disk image they have.

 

[TheLizardMan]

What about for ntfs? do i just detach my hard drives and boot to floppy? err....

 

[MangoX]

you NEED a floppy drive to boot to dos. It also depends what motherboard you have too. I have a MSI board and it supports LiveBIOS, which lets u flash in windows and then reboot right after finishing. Other than that you will need a floppy disk drive. If you don't have one, u can still use a CDRW disc and make it a bootable blank cd. Then load the flash files onto it, boot on it, and then flash from there. But like steve says, if you're using Windows 95 or 98 (dunno about SE) u can press F8 when u see "Preparing to start windows" message or hold down Control key upon boot up, then you will get a boot menu, then just select "Command prompt only" and it shold take u right to dos. Hope this helps. cya

 

[ZimZum]

Originally posted by: TheLizardMan
What about for ntfs? do i just detach my hard drives and boot to floppy? err....

no, you dont have to detach your HDs to boot to a floppy. Your system usually checks for a floppy during post and unless you changed your bios settings will attempt to boot form a floppy if one is inserted in the drive. If your having problems you can go into bios and make sure that your 1st boot device is your floppy drive.

 

[jiffylube1024]

Originally posted by: TheLizardMan
What about for ntfs? do i just detach my hard drives and boot to floppy? err....

DOS can't read NTFS so you'll have to put the file onto a floppy (either the boot disk or another one, your choice). Once you load DOS from the boot disk, select the flasher program and file, and flash away...

 

[jiffylube1024]

Originally posted by: AznBoi36
you NEED a floppy drive to boot to dos. It also depends what motherboard you have too. I have a MSI board and it supports LiveBIOS, which lets u flash in windows and then reboot right after finishing.

By the way: do not flash your BIOS from Windows!!! More than a few motherboards have been fried from flashing the BIOS in Windows. It's an unnecessary risk and it's definately not uncommon for the computer to crash or screw up while flashing in Windows, and once that happens you get the big stiffy .

 

[MustISO]

You could also use something like Drive Image Pro that can load from CD. That will boot into a Dr. Dos session. I don't have floppies on two of my machines, I just boot to DOS from CD.