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How can I boot to DOS without a floppy or CDROM

I

imthebadguy

Platinum Member
I need to update the BIOS on my laptop(Dell Inspiron 2100) and I am wondering how I can boot to dos and update the bios without having a floppy drive or cdrom drive....i know this laptop supports boot from network, but i have no idea how to configure this...also if i can boot to dos how do i update the bios, i have the file but dos dosent read ntfs partition anyways....


thanks for your help...

EDIT: using win xpsp2, and i cant install a floppy becasue its a SFF laptop and dosent support usb boot for a usb key or floppy
 
if you're using win9x you can put the file onto the root of C: then restart & run it from the command prompt.
 
Originally posted by: Twilling
You can order a floppy with parallel interface with dell laptops... I think
Click to expand...


yeah i could do that, but dell charges a fortune and theyre like 40$ with the special cable on ebay, totally not worth it for a floppy
 
Have you thought about booting from a USB memory stick? that's what I use.

I used "free DOS" files and created a boot disk with my USB memory stick and was able to flash the bios from there.

You'll need to check, test if you can boot from a USB device.

Sorry, these instructions are not complete or step by step, but they should point you in the right direction
 
nah my bios is too old for that, perhaps the new one will have that feature, but problem is that i cant load the new one 🙁
 
Well you could.

1 - Old laptop hard drive same physical dimensions as hard drive in laptop.

2 - Format old laptop hard drive with DOS 6.22 or close.

3 - Copy flash utility and BIOS update file to old laptop hard drive.

4 - Switch hard drives.

5 - Boot laptop to DOS.

6 - Flash BIOS.

7 - Return previous hard drive to laptop.

8 - Boot laptop.

 
So it doesn't support booting from USB devices...

First of all, that sucks.

Your options are purchasing the floppy drive shown above, or doing some kind fun hard disk swapping/formating your harddrive just so you can flash. Copy the flash utility and bios onto the boot floppy. You don't need access to the hard disk for flashing.

Unless your system's bios supports flashing from windows (doubtful).
 
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