How do I update my video card BIOS w/o a floppy drive?

[puffpio]

I downloaded the latest BIOS and it says to copy it to a floppy and boot from DOS..I dont have a floppy drive..so I burned a bootable CD and copied the files on there, but it didn't work when I tried to update it.

Any suggestions?

 

[johnjkr1]

USB thumbdrive?

I've got an 03 black spec v...why would you change the wheels!!!

 

[thorin]

Originally posted by: pio!pio!
I downloaded the latest BIOS and it says to copy it to a floppy and boot from DOS..I dont have a floppy drive..so I burned a bootable CD and copied the files on there, but it didn't work when I tried to update it.

Any suggestions?

Yup be more descriptive then "...it didn't work....."

1) Was there an error?
2) Did it freeze?
3) Did your boot disk not work?
4) Would the executable(s) not run?
5) When you booted from the CD you couldn't see the files for the update? (Likely because they were part of a different session)
6) If you could boot from the CD did you try upgrading from the files on your HD?

Thorin

 

[Oifish]

A simple solution is to get a disk drive, they only cost about $15 or less.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: Oifish
A simple solution is to get a disk drive, they only cost about $15 or less.

dont buy a damn diskette drive, they must die, best way to kill them is to never buy or use them.

Here is how you make a dos boot cd

place your files on that cd by following those instructions, boot to dos with the cd and flash it. it will also work for cdrom drives, mobos, etc.

 

[johnjkr1]

He said that he made a boot cd and it did not work. Sure, he may have made a mistake, but he didn't list the error yet.

 

[puffpio]

I made a boot CD rom w/ Nero which uses DR DOS.
I burned the bIOS stuff in the same session. Then when I tried to run it I got an error that dumped the contents of the computer's registers to the screen and dropped me back to the DOS prompt

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: pio!pio!
I made a boot CD rom w/ Nero which uses DR DOS.
I burned the bIOS stuff in the same session. Then when I tried to run it I got an error that dumped the contents of the computer's registers to the screen and dropped me back to the DOS prompt

nero does not work for this sorta thing, use barts method

 

[johnjkr1]

Yeah, and then put the original wheels back on your Spec-V.

 

[puffpio]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh

Originally posted by: Oifish
A simple solution is to get a disk drive, they only cost about $15 or less.

dont buy a damn diskette drive, they must die, best way to kill them is to never buy or use them.

Here is how you make a dos boot cd

place your files on that cd by following those instructions, boot to dos with the cd and flash it. it will also work for cdrom drives, mobos, etc.

that worked for me !! woohoo

 

[Ionizer86]

Ok, I followed the directions in the thing, and I managed to boot the cd, and in a: I find io.sys, autoexec.bat, autorun.bat, command.com, my bios image, and msdos.sys. But now, how do I flash that image to my bios? Shuttle FN45 board (Small form factor).

 

[imported_raybay]

Most BIOS updates are so specific as to what an how, that you cannot even use a floppy disk that was formatted in Windows 2000 or Windows XP... they must be original new IBM format disks or formatted in an MS-DOS Computer. So I very much doubt that you are going to have any luck creating the files on a CD. Install a floppy drive long enough to do it, or double check why you need it. A floppy drive and cable from any junk computer will usually work.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I have a feeling that the flash program may try to write to the drive. Obviously, it cannot do this, if it is running on a floppy image off of a bootable CD in floppy-emulation mode.

If that is the case, then the solution is to make a modified Win98se boot disk. It creates a ramdrive, and unzips the contents of an ERD .cab archive into it. Instead of that, zip up your flash program and bios and whatever other tools you will need into a zip file, and change the Win98se boot disk to use a command-line pkunzip.com file, and your zip file.

At that point, when you boot from that floppy image, you should have your flasher and BIOS on a ramdrive, which the flasher can then write to all it wants, although the contents will disappear when you reboot, obviously.

 

[White Widow]

I'm having the same problem with BCD. I can make the bootable CD, but it will not display the aditional files I need once I am in DOS. I have followed the instuctions and put my extra files in the proper directory before burning, but they do not show up once I boot from the CD. Am I missing something?

 

[Insane3D]

Originally posted by: raybay
Most BIOS updates are so specific as to what an how, that you cannot even use a floppy disk that was formatted in Windows 2000 or Windows XP... they must be original new IBM format disks or formatted in an MS-DOS Computer. So I very much doubt that you are going to have any luck creating the files on a CD. Install a floppy drive long enough to do it, or double check why you need it. A floppy drive and cable from any junk computer will usually work.

Ummmm...incorrect.

Thank you drive thru....

 

[goblue420]

just tossed my floppy a week ago