How to flash your BIOS without a floppy drive

by Julian Prokaza
on Thu 03 Jul 2008 23 Comments

MSI Wind U100As explained in our review, a problem with the way in which some MSI Wind U100 retail units respond to a fully depleted battery means that they need a BIOS update straight from the box. The problem is that BIOS updates need to be run from floppy disk and the MSI Wind, just like the Acer Aspire One and Asus Eee PC, doesn’t have a floppy drive.

An external USB floppy drive is one option, but surely it’s easier to make a bootable USB flash drive and boot the netbook from that, right? Wrong. While netbooks (and most laptops) can be booted from a USB flash drive, the catch is that you still need a bootable DOS floppy to create one...

Fortunately, there is a craft way around this and after the cut we’ll show you how to create your own bootable USB flash drive for BIOS upgrade purposes without using a floppy drive.

You’ll need a number of files before you start:

Download these three files and put them in a folder called Boot Disk on the Desktop. You’ll also need a USB flash drive – anything capable of holding a couple of megabytes or more is fine.

Step 1
Install WinImage and start the program. Go to File > Open and browse to the Boot Disk folder on your Desktop. Select All files (*.*) from the Files of type drop-down list, then select the boot600.exe file (the downloaded DOS 6.0 boot disk image) and click Open.

Step 2
The contents of the DOS 6.0 disk image should appear in WinImage. 

Go to File > Save As and select Image file (*.ima) from the Save as type drop-down list. Enter the file name FLASH and save the file into your Boot Disk folder. Close WinImage when you’re done. 

 

Step 3
Plug in the USB flash drive you want to use and make a note of its drive letter. The drive will be erased as part of this process.

Step 4
Double-click the downloaded cp006049.exe file to install the HP Drive Key Boot Utility (or you can just decompress it and run the hpdkbu.exe program).

Step 5
Start the HP Drive Key Boot Utility and click Next on the first screen. Select the drive letter of your USB flash drive, and then click Next again.

Step 6
Leave the default Create New or Replace Existing Configuration option selected and click Next.

Step 7
Select the Floppy Disk option and click Next.

  

Step 8
Select the Image from file option, and then click the […] button to browse for the files you’ll be using.

Step 9
Browse to the Boot Disk folder on your Desktop, type the file name *.* and click Open. You can then select the FLASH.ima file you made in step 2 (this utility only lets you open .iso files, so we’re using *.* to override it). Click Open.

Step 10
Click Next and the USB flash drive will be formatted as a bootable drive.

Step 11
Copy your BIOS update files to a BIOS sub-folder on the USB flash drive – and that’s it!

Step 12
To boot your netbook with the USB flash drive, you’ll need to plug it in and then alter the drive boot priority in the netbook’s BIOS – be sure to plug the drive in before turning on the netbook, else it may not show up in the BIOS.

 

If your netbook displays a boot menu when you turn it on – press F11 on the MSI Wind for this – you can use this to boot the laptop from the USB flash drive instead.

 

Step 13
Once your netbook has booted from the USB flash drive, you’ll be at a DOS A:\> prompt – you can now run the BIOS update program.

 

Originally published on www.mobilecomputermag.co.uk, now incorporated into Broadband Genie
© Dennis Publishing

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Comments

  • neutral

    by at 15:47 on 4 Jul 2008Report abuse

    Hey there, thanks for the info. I have done this up to the final stage of creating a BIOs subfolder. However, it do not seem to be working for me. I am using a 1gig usb pendrive, yet I get the message that there isn't enough memory to add the biggest file in the BIOS folder into the BIOs sub-folder. is there something am doing wrong?El.

  • neutral

    by at 22:04 on 8 Jul 2008Report abuse

    i have same problem at end of installation and cannot get it to work largest file doesnt install in pen due to no space but am using 8gb pen. I have tried with three pens and to no availhelp please

  • Julian Prokaza - EditorEditor - Julian Prokaza

    by Julian Prokaza at 14:36 on 9 Jul 2008 | registered | 55 postsReport abuse

    Can you create the bootable drive successfully but not copy the BIOS files over, or does the make a bootable drive step fail..? I did this with a 1Gb drive and only 700Kb or so is in use by the end.

  • neutral

    by at 18:56 on 9 Jul 2008Report abuse

    bootable step works but when i try to copy bios files over it says destination drive full and i have tried with 1gb,2gb pen and 8gb sd card. It is always the EN011IMS.105 1,024 KB FILE that doesnt copy over. I have followed evry step word by word

  • neutral

    by at 22:03 on 18 Jul 2008Report abuse

    Mobo manufacturers have release bios updates that can run from inside windows for years now. They just load them selves into memory.Also they more recently have stated to use some Bootable CDs/USBs because there are *no* more floppy drives. Do some research.

  • neutral

    by at 12:37 on 5 Aug 2008Report abuse

    Yeah, flashing your BIOS from inside Windows is a magnificent idea. Maybe it's you who should do the research.Using a CD is a waste of a disc when you can just put the necessary files on a thumb drive and update that way.Unfortunately, with the netbooks you need to go to some length to do it, but it's still better than wasting a CD.And an external FDD can be bought for less than $15 these days. You could run into some difficulty finding floppies, though.

  • neutral

    by babis at 11:23 on 22 Aug 2008Report abuse

    Guys,it works,but what he did forgot to tell is that when you load the dos disk immage onto the WinImage application,you must go into the Image menu and select change format,then sellect 2.8mb disk.After that save it as an .IMA file and everything works great,flash files fit.

  • neutral

    by vebili at 18:27 on 29 Aug 2008Report abuse

    :D Yes, i did it, without FDD, I flashed my ITE Raid Card and I solved my problems with my HDDs. Great explanation and great utility. 10X a lot. :lol:

  • neutral

    by Niffty at 09:32 on 27 Oct 2008Report abuse

    Thanks,for the help. It was driving me nuts... You did a great job,,,,,

  • neutral

    by ciaocibai at 13:36 on 29 Oct 2008Report abuse

    Thanks for the awesome article! It's nice to have something up to date telling us how to do this.

    Dang updating the bios is a pain in the arse though!

  • neutral

    by bobby at 21:30 on 29 Oct 2008Report abuse

    It doesn't work on me.
    Error reading .rom file.

    I have an asus m2n-mx se mainboard and an antec case without floppy connectors.

    Anyway good article!

  • neutral

    by cias at 08:00 on 30 Oct 2008Report abuse

    hi guys,i did everything step-by-step but when i boot from pendrive it show the same screen as above 'banana' no drivers found,i dont know what to type in there (A:/????). i read about that i should write there 'flash.bat' 'eafudos.bat' but its not working.can u help please,thx

  • neutral

    by Jonathan at 13:39 on 12 Nov 2008Report abuse

    hey, my pendrive is empty after step 10 there are 0 bytes in the drive. HELP!

  • neutral

    by Sal at 11:41 on 16 Dec 2008Report abuse

    cias you need to change directory (cd "letter of usb" :)eg. A:/cd F:the go: cd biosthen type: flash

  • neutral

    by Sal at 11:46 on 16 Dec 2008Report abuse

    sorry or easier just type in Flash.batlol

  • neutral

    by Mike at 12:13 on 16 Dec 2008Report abuse

    i managed to do all of the above ok, once prompted at dos A: i ran teh flash and as it does started erasing bios etc and said complete. I read you then have to shutdown laptop, remove battery and plug, the replug battery turn on laptp and then goto BIOS SETUP and LOAD SETUP DEFAULTS and save.But now that im turning the laptop on im not gettin anythin just a black screen. before i didnt put usb floppy as 1st priorty for boot, is that why should it of been the HD but it says above to change priorty???any help please

  • neutral

    by Mike at 12:40 on 16 Dec 2008Report abuse

    i know from above post sounds as if laptop is a dead piece of plastic but playin around with it i got the MSI startup (previously Medion) and pressin F11 got into bios and laods default but its turned off and again nothing.

  • neutral

    by ace at 10:08 on 26 Nov 2009Report abuse

    great article, but... my bios file is 3,155k. how do i format Image to more than 2.88mb so the file will fit??

  • happy

    by Your name at 13:40 on 9 Dec 2009Report abuse

    It worked perfectly, but I had to change the image name from FLASH.IMA to FLASH.IMG.... WinImage didn't give the option of naming it .img. But other than that, it was a breeze, thanks!!

  • happy

    by Pete at 15:23 on 12 Feb 2010Report abuse

    "Mobo manufacturers have release bios updates that can run from inside windows for years now. They just load them selves into memory.Also they more recently have stated to use some Bootable CDs/USBs because there are *no* more floppy drives. Do some research you retard."
    HAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAA - I love this, he jumped onto this howto and makes the above statement - a perfect example of the noisy minority of morons on the internet. Great article by the way - ignore the haters :)

  • neutral

    by Blu at 21:40 on 13 Feb 2010Report abuse

    If this is for a usb drive why are you having us select floppy drive in hp utility??

  • unhappy

    by rraank ing dic at 19:13 on 12 Apr 2010Report abuse

    dropped injured

  • happy

    by cladmi at 10:36 on 18 Apr 2010Report abuse

    Worked for me with the "Change Format" to 2.88 tips. Thanks

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