How to Flash Your BIOS with Flash Drives - Do It Yourself!
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Once you have a ready-to-boot USB flash drive, all that is left to do with it if you want to flash a BIOS is to hook the thumb drive up with your favorite flashing utility and, of course, the latest BIOS update file. Then the flash drive will boot into the OS, such as MS DOS 6.22, and then you are able to flash the BIOS following the official instructions that came with your motherboard manual and accompany the flasher tool.
For a more detailed overview on flashing BIOS please refer back to my classic how-to guide: Why and How to Flash Your BIOS, paying attention especially to the second page. The whole process of flashing BIOS is thoroughly explained, and various tools that can act as BIOS flashers are described, such as AWDFLASH, AMIFLASH, AFUDOS, and the UNIFLASH. Follow the instructions.
Nothing should be different from doing it the traditional way via a floppy disk, other than the drive letter, of course. Therefore, if you got used to writing a batch file script (i.e.; autoexec.bat) that automatically flashes the BIOS right after booting up, be careful not to use absolute paths (like A:afudos.exe /inewbios.bin/). Instead, just rely on relative paths without using drive letters (like afudos.exe /inewbios.bin).
This is possible because the drive/partition from which the system was booted up automatically remains active by default. No drive letter change should matter, regardless of whether your flash drive becomes C: (forced HDD emulation and/or when set as 1st within the boot order list) or gets any other random drive letter (U:, Z:, B:, etc.). The partition remains actively selected, and relative paths can be used without issues, since specifying the drive letter is unnecessary in this case; it's as simple as that.
You can always grab the latest BIOS file from the manufacturer’s official website. Before deciding to flash your BIOS, check your current version number, and then compare it with the latest version available from the motherboard manufacturer’s website. Here you should pay special attention to the changelog. See the bug-fixes and what’s new.
As always, be very careful when flashing BIOS because an inappropriate (read as: not compatible) BIOS image or a corrupted flash will absolutely prevent your computer from POST (power on self-test) and boot up once again. This is a risky process if you don’t take the necessary precautions, such as reducing the probability of power outages (i.e.; UPS), double-checking the BIOS file that’s going to be flashed, and ensuring stability.
Ensuring the operating system stability is often easiest if you “do it” the traditional way as we’ve been advocating here—booting into an MS DOS OS. It’s one of the oldest operating systems, but stable, so it won’t give you a random BSOD or pop up an error box in the middle of process; nor will it freeze or lock up.
If you get a bad flash and your computer refuses to POST anymore, don’t lose hope; there are a few tried-and-proven tricks to fix your problem. Check for these on the third and fourth pages of the BIOS flashing how-to suggested earlier. If you are lucky the boot-block remains intact, and then another flash can be done to give you another try at flashing a correct BIOS image.
To sum up, always consult your motherboard’s manual on how to flash your BIOS the appropriate way, and use the flasher that accompanies your motherboard and comes on the driver CD (if there is one). Otherwise, you can check what kind of BIOS manufacturer you have, such as AMI, Award, Phoenix, etc. and then grab their flasher. Read the official documentation very thoroughly (you should print it out!).
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