BIOS update?

[digory]

OK, in trying to update my BIOS on a Asrock K7S8X runnin Win98se
Asrock requires a flash utility of their own that needs to be loaded on the bootdisk along with the bios info.

Here's the problem...when creating a oot disk, it uses 1.14MB, leaving 250k.
The flash util and bios info are 256 and 265k.

How do you update a bios when neither will fit on a standard bootdisk?
Is there a way to do it from a CD or a 2nd floppy?
I imagine you could use ramdisk, but having never used it, I'm a bit leary of doing that.
Any suggestions?

 

wouldn't you just boot you boot disk.
Then when at the a:\ prompt , put in the flash util disk and run the <flash> .exe (that is on a separate floppy)??

 

[digory]

well, the boot OS is on that floppy. I don't think I can swap floppies like that.

 

[johnjkr1]

Yes, you can swap floppies like that. Also, i'm not sure how you made the boot disk, but that seems pretty full. Luckily, you don't need all the utilities on a boot disk..you don't need format.com...you dont need fdisk, etc..you can just delete the files you don't need.

 

[digory]

yeah i've tried tossing the files I didn't need, and the disk came up invalid...musta tossed something I did need.

I didn't think you could swap disks in the middle of a boot, especially when flashingh a bios. You sure?
Maybe i've just never met anyone brave enough to try it.

 

no you don't swap floppies in the middle of a boot.
Make a win98 boot disk, when it is finished booting it will leave you waiting at the a: prompt.
take out the boot floppy, throw in your flash util and rom floppy.
type: a:\ dir
it will come up with a directory , there should be a prog called flutil.exe or aflash.exe or some other exe.
run it , it will start the flash util, and ask you to identify the rom you want to use to flash <which will also be on the floppy>
good luck.

 

[huesmann]

You can use your old boot disk (or make a new one if you screw that one up).

Just put the flash utility and the BIOS binary on another floppy.

When the boot floppy has successfully booted the 'puter, insert the flash disk and flash away.

 

[digory]

koo dat!
thanks for the info. I guess I didn't realize you could swap out a boot disk until the thing was fully booted up.

 

[huesmann]

Yup, you just won't be able to use any utils on the boot floppy (while you have the flash disk inserted) unless it created a RAM drive, like many Win98 boot disks did.

 

[IamElectro]

Try going to a command prompt and doing a
c:\format /s
this will only copy the needed files to boot and not the cdrom drivers and ram drive crap that is not need to flash the bios. You will have over one meg left on the disk.