bootable floppy

[racerxfactor]

i'm trying to make a bootable floppy so that i can update my bios. when i put in a floppy and type format a:/s in the command prompt it'll say /s is an invalid paramater. is there something i'm doing wrong?

[Statica]

No there isnt anything wrong .. Win2k/XP etc are not like Windows 9x a GUI running on DOS, its a whole new system. Your options are to download a bootdisk from www.bootdisk.com (something like Win98SE); and just boot to DOS. Or check your mfger website, pretty much all of them have WinXP/2k compatible versions of BIOS flash that dont require you to drop down to DOS modes.
Also go through your BIOS manual .. there is usually a keycombination during POST that will run a built-in flash uility .

HTH

[Spyda]

when i flashed my BIOS, i had to download the new BIOS and a few other things in a zip file.
I had to extract the updated BIOD to a floppy. Then I had to make a flash utility on a floppy using one of the utilities in the zip,
then i had to use a 98 boot disk and boot without CD support, note what drive the ramdrive was and copy the BIOS off the floppy to the ramdrive.
Then i had to insert the floppy with the flashing utility on it and upgrade through that.

It was all very faffy

[racerxfactor]

thanks for the tips everyone! i think i'll be ok with trying to boot off a 98se boot disk then switching. that was my second guess solution. just needed someone to tell me what that works.

[reboot]

Statica (and others), make a bootable floppy thus:
Open Explorer, right click A drive, select Format, put tick mark in "Make MSDOS boot disk", click OK.
It's enough to boot, and put the BIOS flash files on, although pretty much useless for anything else.
FYI, I now use a Ghost diskette instead of anything else, include the Adaptec drivers, and NIC drivers, and everything else you can use in the diskette setup options. Allow booting with LAN support, CD-ROM support and many other options, covers pretty much any hardware one can think of as well.

[Spyda]

i think with XP you have to use a 98 boot disk to flash

[Tuf]

You could use any boot disk that will let you run the flash program. You don't need or want a whole start up disc. You especially don't want any version of himen.sys on it. Just the basic system files will do.

[racerxfactor]

well i'm runnin the flash utility as we speak and it's at a screen where is says on the bottom "warning do not turn off power or reset system." how long is this suppose to be on this screen? it's been over 5 minutes now and it doesn't seem like it's doing anything.

[melloman]

You can never have too many win98 boot floppies. they are too damn useful. Throw a copy of smartdrv.exe on it, so you can do win2k installs, because that's needed. i customize mine with ansi.sys and change colors, and I put doskey on it as well, it helps for fat fingers.

[Tuf]

Just out of curiosity, how did this turn out?

[morriswindgate]

I always use a bootdisk with the basic files on it and a clean disk that has the update and flash program on it. When I get to the A:\Prompt I put in the disk with the BIOS update on it and flash from there. The seperate disk makes sure that I have the room to backup the old bios. The I label it and store it by date and name. If you do a lot of builds you can also then take and save the floppy files to a CD-RW.

[racerxfactor]

well after about anther hour of watching the screen i figured nothing was going to happen so i just stopped it. i think i'll stick with 2k for awhile