Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
cause several steps are involved. One particularly difficult part is the manual creation of
the bootable media to which you will copy the files. Although it is fairly straightforward
andsimpletocreateabootablefloppy,theprocedureforcreatingbootableopticaldiscsor
USB flash drives is more involved.
Fortunately,somefreeutilitiesarehelpful.ForcreatingabootableCDforBIOSupgrades,
I recommend the Clean Boot CD package, which you can download for free from
www.nu2.nu/bootcd/#clean
.
Download the self-extracting executable package into a new
folder and run it, which extracts the additional files and folders within. Then follow the
directions to copy the flash utility and image files for your motherboard into the proper
folder. After the files are in place, you can run the “build-clean” command, which auto-
matically builds and creates an ISO image of a bootable CD, complete with an OS and
your files included. You can then use a third-party CD/DVD-burning program such as
ImgBurn (
www.imgburn.com
)
to copy the ISO image to an optical disc.
After you have burned the disc, you can boot from it, navigate to the folder where your
flashutility andimage filesarelocated, andentertheappropriate command toexecute the
upgrade. For Intel motherboards that use the IFLASH.EXE utility and image files with an
*.BIO extension, the proper command would be
IFLASH /PF XXX.BIO
, where you would
replace
XXX.BIO
with the actual name of the BIO file you have.
You can accomplish the same procedure with a bootable USB flash drive, but just as with
the creation of a bootable optical disc, creating a bootable USB flash drive can be some-
what involved. Fortunately, a Windows-based USB format utility (HPUSBDisk.exe) is
available for free from HP (
http://tinyurl.com/yfz8rdl
). To make the flash drive bootable,
this program requires a set of DOS system files (
command.com
,
io.sys, and msdos.sys)
to write to the flash drive during the format. You can use several versions of DOS, but in
most cases I recommend using the system files from DOS 6.22. If you don't have a copy,
you can download the DOS 6.22 system files in the form of a bootable floppy image from
www.bootdisk.com
.
Lookforthe“Non-WindowsBasedImageFiles,”andthendownload
the 622c.zip file. Use a program like 7-Zip (
www.7-Zip.org
)
to first extract the .IMG file
from the zip file, and then use it again to extract the DOS files from the .IMG file.
To create the bootable flash drive, run the HPUSBDisk.exe program and select the flash
device and file system (FAT). Then check Create a DOS Startup Disk Using System Files
Located At and point to the location where you have extracted the necessary DOS files.
After that, perform the format.
