BIOS Flashing time!!

[shiato storm]

[this is for the MSI Neo2 Plat.]
I'm used to putting the bios on a floppy and going through it that way but having read through the MSI bios update/flash procedure it seems different. is it saying I start up to command prompt and then execute the bios flash program from C: drive?
if not would this work at all? just thought I'd ask those in the know before I royally screw my board up!! (cause i don't use an a: drive...)

here's what it says in the instructions for flashing the bios: [steps 7 and 8]
6) boot from start-up disk/floppy

7) When you get the A:\ prompt, type the following sequence:
C: <enter>
cd\test <enter>
C:\test> awdfl783m BIOS file
(to save or not to save old BIOS is the user’s decision)

Reboot your system when prompted

just wanted to clear that up....

[SilentDeath]

cd\ goes back to the root of the drive, so 2nd line is wrong.

Goto the folder they are in by:

cd [drive:]\[folder]\

subsituting [xxxx] for xxxx, then:

dir

to see the filenames - I can never remember them..

then:

[flashprogram] [bios file]

[shiato storm]

sounds simple enough, get a command promt, navigate to bios file and flashamundo...

[Steve]

If you're not flashing from windows and you're using a prompt, you'll HAVE to use a floppy, unless you have a FAT32 partition on an IDE-attached HDD in there.

[shiato storm]

um...no. ntfs only.
can I get there going through the recovery consol on the XP cd?

[Steve]

Isn't there a windows flash utility? Or can't you just borrow a floppy drive failing that?

[jimborae]

Ignore the instuctions & do it just the way you always have, thats what I do with mine.

DrDFlash to make the floppy bootable & then flash it using awdflash.

[shiato storm]

yes but I DON'T HAVE AN A: DRIVE... (says so in the first post!)
and I've not done it before with this board so was wondering if I could get around the lack of a: drive and go through the recovery consol to get to command prompt and flash from C: drive there...? or will that still not work cause flash works on fat 32 file system present on floppy?

[SilentDeath]

I usually use the bootdiskfrom here: http://www.bootdisk.com/
direct link - http://download.sudhian.com/faq/kt7/...c/drdflash.exe

I dont think it would work (and wouldnt trust) the xp recovery console for flashing bios.

If you want to use bootable CD you can use nero to make one from a pre-made floopy disk or floopy image. The image in this zip is based on dos 6.22 should work with nero (not tested!) http://1gighost.net/randyboy/622c.zip


It applys to hot-flashing mainly (which is where you swap bios chips over to reflash a dead one) but I always enable "bios shadowing" before doing any flashing - would stop bios trying to read itself as its flashed - which would happen if the flash program was dodgy. Setting is usually on "chipset features" page of bios I think.





Most mobo manufacturers provide windows based flash utilitys on there site. I would be supprised if msi didnt have one. I know abit, gigabyte, dfi etc.. all have them, and most others do i think.

[shiato storm]

a mine of info. thank you that man!

[CeeJay]

msi do have a windows based proggy to do it, but it only lets you doing after searching the net, it wont let you load a bios file into it and flash then.
im trying to go back to a previous bios but having probs on my neo plat

[CeeJay]

ok ive found a program that will do it.
but its not a bin file.
the bios file itself ends with .140
its from the rar file i got from msi site so is that safe to flash with?

*edit*
was ok afterall

[shiato storm]

right, after much rumaging and scrounging around i managed to rip open an old dusty comp with an a: drive and hook up to that, it doesn't even have a cover its do old and nasty! even windows struggled to find it.
finally got it though...:

format one floppy and check box to make as a boot disk,
quick format another disk and put the AWFLxxxx.exe flash executable on it along with the bios file (w7025nms.180 was the one I had)

restart - press del and alter start up sequence to read floppy first, then save/restart with BOOT disk in.
one it finishes its booting take it out and put the BIOS disk in.
[you should be at the a:\ prompt, type dir
see whats there, then type the flash exe file followed by the bios image you want to use e.g.
a:\AWFL833D w7025nms.180
(pretty much as its ment to be written only you change the file names according to those you have on the disk).
wait a second and it'll load up the bios flash program and then you should see it asking for the bios image to flash from...type in the bios image you have (ending .180 in this case) and hit return. save original bios before its replaced if you wish...
....wait a bit and it should be all done in no time.

p.s. don't forget to take out the disk and return start up setting to their original order (hdd>cd>floppy or something)

[SHISH]

There are several boot disks and progs around that can boot into dos and also let you read NTFS partitions but most manufacturers do it from within Windoze nowadays so there`s no problem. As long as you make sure there`s nothing too heavy running, especially anti virus or script blocking progs, these are now very good and quite safe.
Personally, I`ve used an old version of Winflash for some years now (3.22 I think) as it gives you just about every option there is and works from within Windoze but on occasion, I`ve used Ultimate boot disk off a usb stick where the board would allow usb boot up and most modern boards do as well as some bios having the facility to just look through the available devices (whatevers fitted) and boot from the first available. I`ve even done it via a network on one rig when it had a dead floppy but I had dos drivers for the netcard, just can be a pig to log on from a dos session to a win 2k or XP box.

[jimborae]

yes but I DON'T HAVE AN A: DRIVE... (says so in the first post!)......

Apologies, I missed that part of your post.

As somebody else as said there is a program to flash the bios within windows & it does work cos thats how I last flash my bios of this board. However you need to have installed the msi utilities (the core cell one iirc)that came with the driver & utilities CD.

Then there are two ways to do it within windows.

1. Live Update; then direct it to update the motherboard bios, however I've found it doesn't always find the latest bios on the web.

2. WinFlash utility (as mentioned by someone else). This utility is a bit hidden though, you'll find it in the MSI folder where ever you installed the MSI Utlilites. In my case thats Crogram files/msi..etc. You'll then be able to update to whatever bios file you've already downloaded.

Anyway as you've now hooked up a floppy all thats a bit irrelevant but at least the info is there for future flashes.

[shiato storm]

yeah, i tried live update but it was pants, always asking for me to connect to the intarweb...odd that I already was then!

cheers jimboree, if I need to do it again I'll have a stab at in-windows-flashing. sounds like it works for people so no reason why not for me. well...knowing my luck it'll cause a tiny explosion somewhere around the cpu...phhuttt!