Best, safest way to flash a bios

ShadowFold · Jan 23, 2009

I need to flash my DFI to the latest PII bios and I REALLY cannot kill it. I don't have a floppy drive sadly, I do have a CD burner and USB flash drive. I also have an Athlon X2 4200+ but it's my friends and I would have to borrow it if that's safer to flash it on because my semperon is slow. I was thinking the USB drive would be safer but I need a good guide.. I have seen a few but I don't know if I can trust them or not. Thanks

sneekypeet · Jan 23, 2009

when you find the bios at DFI there is Winflash to download with the bios file to flash in windows. If done correctly it's issue free. Done all my flashing with it and never had a bad flash with an approved bios. i did brick a board once but I knew it was comming when I did it!

ShadowFold · Jan 23, 2009

I really don't want to flash in windows.. I have done it before on my old foxconn but this board can't die.. I don't have a backup.

sneekypeet · Jan 23, 2009

understood

JrRacinFan · Jan 23, 2009

Flash from your USB drive. Only way I do it.

3dsage · Jan 23, 2009

Here ya go man
http://tw.dficlub.com/tw/modules/ne...c_id=1837&forum=27&post_id=6679#forumpost6679

hat · Jan 23, 2009

I did it from a USB drive one time on my DFI board. I just downloaded the floppy drive flash program and edited the .bat file to read from c:\ instead of a:\ (the floppy drive is recgonized as c:\ when you boot into DOS)

CrAsHnBuRnXp · Jan 23, 2009

I either use WinFlash or throw it on a flash drive.

To put on a flash drive jsut extract the rom file to the usb drive, restart computer, get into BIOS, go to wherever it is you need to go to update bios, choose the location and flash away.

cdawall · Jan 23, 2009

DFI doesn't have a BIOS flasher in the BIOS? all my boards since an i865 GB have had the ability to flash from a USB in the BIOS....

JrRacinFan · Jan 23, 2009

cdawall said:
DFI doesn't have a BIOS flasher in the BIOS? all my boards since an i865 GB have had the ability to flash from a USB in the BIOS....

No it actually doesnt. I know I find it odd also ....

LittleLizard · Jan 23, 2009

i have an msi and i flash with the windows utility as it seems reliable

ShadowFold · Jan 23, 2009

Is there anyway I can recover from a bad flash if I do the Winflash thing? If not I will just do it via USB stick. I already formatted it. Just gotta load the BIOS onto it.

Thrackan · Jan 23, 2009

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it really easy to just reflash whil you're still in Windows?
I don't know if the utility will report if a flash went bad, but the BIOS is only used during powerup of your system, so in my reasoning you should be able to flash and reflash it from Windows as long as you don't power down...

I could be wrong though, experts please correct me

ShadowFold · Jan 23, 2009

Thrackan said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it really easy to just reflash whil you're still in Windows?
I don't know if the utility will report if a flash went bad, but the BIOS is only used during powerup of your system, so in my reasoning you should be able to flash and reflash it from Windows as long as you don't power down...

I could be wrong though, experts please correct me

can anyone confirm this?

Exeodus · Jan 23, 2009

Here ya go. Follow the instructions on this link to setup a usb flash drive to be bootable.
http://tw.dficlub.com/tw/modules/ne...c_id=1837&forum=27&post_id=6679#forumpost6679

Then, copy the contents of the bios downloaded folder to the main drive folder, do place in a seperate folder. Then put in the pen drive, reboot, enter the bios, change the hard drive boot priority to the usb drive, the reboot. The usb drive will boot and and will automatically load the bios flash utility. Follw the prompts and and reboot when requested. Then load optimized defaults, save, reboot, then go back in the re-tweak your bios settings.

This also works with Abit as well. I have a usb drive dedicated to just bios flashes.

r9 · Jan 23, 2009

LittleLizard said:
i have an msi and i flash with the windows utility as it seems reliable

Windows flashing is not that dangerous if you have stable system, power and clean OS. And in DOS is safer I guess because background processes are minimal or none there is nothing to interfire with flashing. I don`t think there is difference if you flash from floppy or USB. Ok maybe USB is little bit safer considering floppy failure rate but software before starts flashing is loading BIOS in to the RAM and checks if it is OK.

JrRacinFan · Jan 23, 2009

Thrackan said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it really easy to just reflash whil you're still in Windows?
I don't know if the utility will report if a flash went bad, but the BIOS is only used during powerup of your system, so in my reasoning you should be able to flash and reflash it from Windows as long as you don't power down...

I could be wrong though, experts please correct me

Possible if you have the option to shadow your bios.

Thrackan · Jan 23, 2009

JrRacinFan said:
Possible if you have the option to shadow your bios.

I'm not sure I get you correctly. My scenario would be:
- Boot into windows
- Flash BIOS
- OMG BIOS is bad! Flash again
- AFTER that reboot

shouldn't that just work? You can take out a BIOS chip while the comp is running...

JrRacinFan · Jan 23, 2009

Thrackan said:
I'm not sure I get you correctly. My scenario would be:
- Boot into windows
- Flash BIOS
- OMG BIOS is bad! Flash again
- AFTER that reboot

shouldn't that just work? You can take out a BIOS chip while the comp is running...

On 80% newer systems they have the option of shadowing system bios already enabled and no option to disable it. What I meant by shadowing is leaving bios cacheable into system's memory.

In other words yes, you can. But how does one do a check for a bad bios?

Thrackan · Jan 23, 2009

JrRacinFan said:
On 80% newer systems they have the option of shadowing system bios already enabled and no option to disable it. What I meant by shadowing is leaving bios cacheable into system's memory.

In other words yes, you can. But how does one do a check for a bad bios?

Well, at least the Asus utility does a check after flashing...

JrRacinFan · Jan 23, 2009

Thrackan said:
Well, at least the Asus utility does a check after flashing...

Cool, see now that I didn't know. You teach me, I teach you .

r9 · Jan 23, 2009

Thrackan said:
I'm not sure I get you correctly. My scenario would be:
- Boot into windows
- Flash BIOS
- OMG BIOS is bad! Flash again
- AFTER that reboot

shouldn't that just work? You can take out a BIOS chip while the comp is running...

- Boot into windows
- Flash BIOS
- OMG BIOS is bad! Flash again Ooo shit PC freezes
- AFTER that reboot
- Go to local store

Or prepare for Blind FDD flashing

francis511 · Jan 23, 2009

Windoze flashing is supposed to be slightly less reliable. Some boards will let you post even after a bad flash (check your manual). Sometimes the update package + bios file > 2mb so you must use a flash drive rather than a floppy.

Thrackan · Jan 23, 2009

Asus was also kind enough to provide me with CrashFree on this board... I have needed it.

PaulieG · Jan 23, 2009

You should google "Tmods bios CD". If it's still up to date, it will be your best solution for DFI bios flashing. You simply burn the ISO, and boot from the CD. Awesome utility.

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Best, safest way to flash a bios

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