Flashing bios with bootable cd

Is this possible?

 

Can't do it from Windows?

 

i dont want to do it from windows

 

Check if you have the Easy Flash Utility in the BIOS.

It's a "Start Flash" or "Start Easy Flash" option somewhere on some BIOS tab, if you have it.

It's also an Fsomething (F8 maybe) hotkey upon startup.

 

Yes I have that. How do I use it? I thought that was for floppy drives.

 

As far as i remember you can place it in your root c:/ and browse for the bios rom from using the easy flash option in bios. i may be wrong

 

My easyflash only supports flashing from A:

In the bios there is a note that mentions it does not support cdrom flashes. Is it possible to burn the dos version of asus flash to a cd and make it bootable?

 

Unnecessary. Here is my guide for updating BIOS with the Easy Flash. I should've posted it together with the question it would've saved you some time.


To make a long story short.

How to upgrate: you don't need to "uninstall" anything, since the BIOS is just a chunk of flash memory 512KB in size on a special chip on the motherboard. This memory should get overwritten in the upgrade process; overwriting, once started, takes about 15 seconds. You need to download the BIOS file, i.e., the raw content of the new BIOS, 512KB in size. This is usually a ZIP file on the ASUS support page. Unzip it to get the BIOS file, which directly usable by the flash utility.

Flash utility: For many ASUS notebooks, there is an utility in the BIOS menu itself, accessible via pressing F2 during boot, and then navigating to "Start Flashing BIOS" or "Start Easy Flash Utility" or something like that. Otherwise, there is a DOS utility on the ASUS support site, and a Windows utility as well.

As always, I recommend that the upgrade be done with the BIOS utility if it is available, as it involves no Operating System (whether Windows or DOS) and therefore is much less prone to errors. And failure during BIOS writing means death for the computer (temporary death, since the chip can be removed and written anew by techsupport, but death anyway).

For the same reason, have a good amount of charge in your battery when starting the utility (more than 10 minutes worth of it). That way, you don't depend on the AC supply which might run out just in the critical few seconds.

Precise walkthrough for overwriting BIOS using the BIOS Flash utility:
1. Download BIOS.
2. Unzip into the root folder on a flash drive.
3. Insert flash drive.
4. Reboot, press F2 to go into BIOS, navigate to "Start Easy Flash Utility" or a similar name. Select this option.
5. At the ensuing explorer-like navigation screen, navigate to the flash drive and select the unzipped BIOS file.
6. Wait until BIOS is written. The computer will reboot itself.
7. Go into BIOS and select "Reset to Defaults"; either User or Manufacturer defaults.
8. Navigate around BIOS and select options the way you like them (boot device order etc.)

 

Unfortunately, I dont have a flash drive. Also, in my bios when I highlight the "start easy flash" it says that USB is not supported.

 

by "flash drive" I don't mean a HDD; I mean a USB pen/key/memory stick. Are you sure it doesn't state that it doesn't support USB HDDs in that comment? I do remember something similar stated in my EasyFlash.

Otherwise it must be an older version.

One of these things should work otherwise the utility is completely useless:
1. Reading BIOS from the first partition of the HDD (preferably FAT32 but my version also supports NTFS)
2. Reading BIOS from a USB pen-drive.
3. Reading BIOS from a CD-ROM.

Please note that the A: is going to be the first thing it finds and not the floppy drive! E.g., if I insert a USB pen-drive it will find it as A:

Otherwise, you're stuck with a bootable CD indeed... but that's more complicated, I'll wait with any instructions maybe you can do it in one of the ways described above.