How can I flash the BIOS? I looked at OpenBIOS but it was no help. SOYOusa.com/downloads has a prog called awdflash.exe but that doesn't really help on linux. Thanks in advance for any help.

I haven't seen any BIOS flash program that was for linux. All you need to do is create a DOS boot floppy disk and copy the BIOS and the FLASH programing utility. Then reboot and flash the new BIOS.

Just as simple as that. I assume you can create a boot floppy disk from XP?

I don't have a working floppy drive ..... I guess I can burn a cd?

Should work fine with a floppy disk boot image.

i updated mine with a simple floppy drive but if i am not wrong all bios ses have their own file so you can t just find a prog to update it if i am wrong please coreect me

Awdflash.exe is a popular prog to write to the bios area. But every mobo distributes a .bin file with it which is the info to put in the bios area.

If you ned a dos boot image, google advanced on
dos boot disk

problem is is that I don't have a floppy drive so I need to burn it to a cd or something

Why make a bootable floppy in crappy Windows XP. Do it in LINUX. Do not mount the floppy because the utility writes an image to the floppy.

Do not mix BIOS FLASH brands. AWARD motherboards were designed for the AWARD Utility. If you mix brands your computer may not be functionable.

You can use a CD for booting, but you would not have the backup of your BIOS. Floppies are recommended because if the BIOS is bad the computer will search the floppy drive. Floppy drives are cheap.

IMO, I like TEAC floppy drives. They don't have any problems.

agree.

BIOS program can write file such as .bin to firmware chip on motherboard, FLASH brands like intel, such firmware chip was only one of the components on motherboard, there were lot of motherborads so far.

Apart from motherborad, firmware chip could also be on many I/O hardware cards, printers, harddisk, optical drives, etc.

Yes, Flash chips can be bought off the shelf at any electronic retailer like digi-key, Jameco, Mouser, etc. I do not think you understand that the firmware or software written by Award, Pheonix, American Megatreds that provides simple means of what makes a desktop, server, or notebook computer. The motherboard manufacture creates modules to provide features for the BIOS. The modules can also be pre-made from the BIOS manufacture.

Any non-volatile memory can be used to hold firmware for any electronic device.

Basically firmware is very low level software.

I set up a boot flash utility using FreeDOS and a USB stick; it wasn't straightforward though, but I might still have some notes somewhere.

As for what software to use to flash the BIOS, you need to look at what the manufacturer tells you to use. If you use any of the other proprietary flash programs you'll probably screw up your BIOS (which means get a new MoBo unless you have friends who can reprogram your chip).

What motherboard do you have ?

Did anyone notice how old this thread is?

Anyway, for future reference, the link in my sig provides a four-page tutorial on flashing BIOS, including info on flashing - and recovering from a bad flash - from floppy or CD, as well as links to the correct flash utilities from the different BIOS manufacturers.

Cheers

Dang, these things just keep coming back - like zombies or something. We need a script to mark all threads older than 2 months as 'closed' or something like that. Then again, what do you do when an ancient thread *is* relevant.