How to flash your BIOS without a floppy drive

By Julian Prokaza on Thu 03 July 2008

Page 1 of 2

As 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:

WinImage: Available as a fully-functioning 30-day demo
A DOS 6.0 boot disk image
The HP Drive Key Boot Utility Version 7.41

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.

Comments

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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 sellect change format,then sellect 2.8mb disk.After that save it as an .IMA file and everything works great,flash files fit.

: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:

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

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!

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!

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

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

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

sorry or easier just type in Flash.batlol

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

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.

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

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!!

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