Flash system BIOS without a floppy?

[Rilescat]

Good Day,

I am curious, how do I flash the system BIOS on a motherboard without a floppy drive? Can this be done using a CDROM?

I ask because of this article: Dell Removes floppies

Thanks for the info.

 

[thorin]

You can do it with a Bootable CDROM, or some manufacturers allow flashing while in Windows using a file on your HD.

Thorin

 

[PCMarine]

Yea, if you have a bootable CD you can boot to the prompt and flash it from a file stored there.

 

[vexingv]

what/how do u guys make a bootable CD into DOS to flash BIOSes...i've tried nero and used floppy disk emulation and put in a windows startup disk, but it didnt work (plus some ppl wouldnt have a floppy drive in the first place)

 

[GTaudiophile]

I know ASUS recommends you back up your current BIOS before flashing. You couldn't do that with a regular CD-ROM.

 

[Insane3D]

Most of the major manufacturers include windows based bios flashers with their motherboards now. I use the excellent Winflash program that comes with all my Epox boards to flash right in the windows enviroment. Fast, simple, and easy.

 

[Markfw]

Quote:" Most of the major manufacturers include windows based bios flashers with their motherboards now. I use the excellent Winflash program that comes with all my Epox boards to flash right in the windows enviroment. Fast, simple, and easy."

That assumes you have a motherboard that supports this, and that you have Windows installed. There are Linux system out there, and I don't have one single motherboard that supports Windows flashing, and the 30-40 PC's I have buildt for family members don't have it either. It will be a lot of years before I get rid of floppies. I am sure many people are in the same boat. This is only the beginning, and there are a lot of problems to get worked out before they go away altogether.

Not to mention that my sons school (11th grade) requires every student to have a floppy to exchange files from school to home.

 

[Insane3D]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
Quote:" Most of the major manufacturers include windows based bios flashers with their motherboards now. I use the excellent Winflash program that comes with all my Epox boards to flash right in the windows enviroment. Fast, simple, and easy."

That assumes you have a motherboard that supports this, and that you have Windows installed. There are Linux system out there, and I don't have one single motherboard that supports Windows flashing, and the 30-40 PC's I have buildt for family members don't have it either. It will be a lot of years before I get rid of floppies. I am sure many people are in the same boat. This is only the beginning, and there are a lot of problems to get worked out before they go away altogether.

Not to mention that my sons school (11th grade) requires every student to have a floppy to exchange files from school to home.

Well, first of all, it can still be done with a CD if you don't have a "Windows based system" since it does not require any particular OS to be installed. Secondly, it's not like they are stopping making floppies all together, it's just going to be optional now. As far as school's go, I would assume most of their systems are recent enough to have a CDROM drive that can handle most CDR's, so I don't think bringing in reports and assignments on CD's instead of floppies wouldn't be that big of a deal. Of course there would be some adjustment, but eventually, it will have to be done.

 

[paralazarguer]

Yeah, do they run windows? Besides, we're talking about new system coming out without floppy drives. NOT some thousands of existing PCs. These would run windows XP or have cd burning software. CD-rw is so cheap it should replace floppies immediately. There's no reason to use floppies anymore. They're idiotic. The only reason you'd even need to flash from a cd-rw is if you couldn't boot to windows in today's "should-be" legacy-free system.