Bootable CDROM for BIOS update?

[povmec]

Is it possible to create a bootable CDROM for various purpose, like updating
the BIOS using AFUDOS, or to run a memory test, or any other basic fonctions
to be run before the OS loads? If yes, I would like to know where to go to
get the steps.

Thanks, Ray.

 

[Ron Reaugh]

Is it possible to create a bootable CDROM for various purpose, like updating
the BIOS using AFUDOS, or to run a memory test, or any other basic fonctions
to be run before the OS loads? If yes, I would like to know where to go to
get the steps.

http://www.bootdisk.com/txtfiles/flashcd.txt
http://www.nu2.nu/bootcd/
http://www.bootdisk.com/nero.htm

 

[CeeBee]

Is it possible to create a bootable CDROM for various purpose, like
updating the BIOS using AFUDOS, or to run a memory test, or any other
basic fonctions to be run before the OS loads?

A "bootable" CD Rom loads the OS, so not much gain there.

AFUDOS should be used from a DOS prompt, not from a command window under
a Windows OS.

Start in safe mode and go to "prompt only" and the result is the same.
If you screw up your BIOS, you won't be able to boot anything, neither a
hard disk with an OS nor a bootable CD-Rom.

And always ask yourself why you want to update BIOS. If it ain't broke,
don't fix it. Don't do it just because you _can_.

http://www.simmtester.com/PAGE/products/doc/docinfo.asp

Here's a free program to check your memory. It creates a bootable floppy
with its own OS.

--
CeeBee


"I don't know half of you
half as well as I should like;
and I like less than half of you
half as well as you deserve."

 

[Lazarus]

Use nero to make a bootable cd

it will copy the files from a floppy you provide.www.bootdisk.com if u dont
have one......just use a win98 one

then add your flash prog to the nero compilation.plus your bios file of
course!!

burn your disc

when u want to boot from it go into bios and change 1st boot device to cd
rom and reboot

 

[Philip Callan]

alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus:




A "bootable" CD Rom loads the OS, so not much gain there.

AFUDOS should be used from a DOS prompt, not from a command window under
a Windows OS.

Uhh, CeeBee just in case you missed it, DOS /is/ an OS.

for the OP, almost all new linux distributions, on disc1 have the
memtest program, you can boot your machine and test the ram without
installing anything, i think there is even a memtest86 mini-cd sized iso
for burning, to automate doing it on multiple machines.

 

[JBM]

A "bootable" CD Rom loads the OS, so not much gain there.

That depends on what image you burn to the CD.
You can burn an image of a bootable floppy and
the CD will boot and act like your floppy.

Jim M

 

[Ron Reaugh]

A "bootable" CD Rom loads the OS, so not much gain there.

YAH, like DOS from where you flash...ya know AFUDOS.

AFUDOS should be used from a DOS prompt, not from a command window under
a Windows OS.

Catch UP!

 

[CeeBee]

That depends on what image you burn to the CD.
You can burn an image of a bootable floppy and
the CD will boot and act like your floppy.

That's true, however not the point of my response.
The OP wanted to create it "to be run before the OS loads", especially for
updating BIOS etc.
Of course booting over a CD Rom or any bootable media _will_ load an OS.
He probably meant: "before the Windows GUI starts".


--
CeeBee


"I don't know half of you
half as well as I should like;
and I like less than half of you
half as well as you deserve."

 

[povmec]

in message

http://www.bootdisk.com/txtfiles/flashcd.txt
http://www.nu2.nu/bootcd/
http://www.bootdisk.com/nero.htm

Many thanks, http://www.nu2.nu/bootcd/ seems to have what I'm looking for.

A "bootable" CD Rom loads the OS, so not much gain there.

My mistake, I meant XP, not OS.

And always ask yourself why you want to update BIOS. If it ain't broke,
don't fix it. Don't do it just because you _can_.

True, I read these horror stories, I don't really want to update at this
point in time. I just want to have an emergency CD that contains everything
I could need in case of badluck. Also, if ever I decide to upgrade to a
Prescott CPU, I won't have choice to upgrade my BIOS, the one installed on
my MB doesn't support these new P4s.

Here's a free program to check your memory. It creates a bootable floppy
with its own OS.

My "problem" (by choice) is that I didn't install a floppy in the computers
I built (for our own usage). I have a floppy drive ready to be used in case
of emergency, but I don't like the idea of having one installed permanently
especially that it doesn't have much purpose anymore aside these basic
operations. Since it seems possible to boot DOS from a CD, I guess a floppy
has even less purpose now.

To all:

Now before burning the CD, I'm trying to put together everything is nice to
have on a bootable DOS disk for emergency or testing purpose. I collected
the latest few BIOS and matching AFUDOS for my motherboard (PC4800-E-DLX),
memtest86. What else would be smart to include on the CD before burning it?

Thanks, Ray.

 

[Ron Reaugh]

And always ask yourself why you want to update BIOS. If it ain't broke,
don't fix it. Don't do it just because you _can_.

That's bad advice. Always flash the latest BIOS carefully. New BIOSs
always contain much more than what the indicated changes are such as later
versions of CPU microcode. With a modest attention to detail there is a
very small risk.

 

[Philip Callan]

To all:

Now before burning the CD, I'm trying to put together everything is nice to
have on a bootable DOS disk for emergency or testing purpose. I collected
the latest few BIOS and matching AFUDOS for my motherboard (PC4800-E-DLX),
memtest86. What else would be smart to include on the CD before burning it?

Thanks, Ray.

Hmm, I'd recommend:

1. AutoPatcher latest release (AutoPatcherXP_Aug04_Full.exe is about 290MB)

This contains directx 9c, the net framework, all your hotfixes etc, in
case you have to reinstall windows anytime, its nice to have those
patches offline.

2. ZoneAlarm free edition

3. a free AV program (AVG etc) and its latest definition file (they
normally have listed in the 'how do I manually update my AV' section of
their FAQ)

4. Always nice to toss drivers for your hardware on as well, mine has
AFUDOS, the 1016 bios file, the intel chipset drivers, the intel NIC
driver, all the ATI multimediacenter/dvd codec/catalyst 4.9's files, the
drivers for my Audigy.

5. misc stuff to toss on if you have room:

the latest Adobe reader redist (AdbeRdr602_distrib_enu.exe 36MB), so you
can open PDF's

the latest mozilla (I just used thunderbird/firefox, not the suite),
openoffice, WinRAR/ZIP/ACE your choice for archives, and a IM program (I
use trillian as it supports multiple protocols)

I build a SystemDVD I have a larger upper limit, still waiting till I
can find at least 2.5G worth of stuff, only at 1.3G so far including a
bunch of utilities and backups of documents.....

 

[P2B]

That depends on what image you burn to the CD.
You can burn an image of a bootable floppy and
the CD will boot and act like your floppy.

Jim M

To be more specific, it will boot and act like your floppy behaves *when
the floppy is write-protected* - this can be an important qualifier if
programs expect to be able to modify their configuration files, create
temp files, etc.

P2B

 

[Barry Watzman]

Well, keep this in mind:

In general, the CD will only run MS-DOS, not Windows.

More to the point, because of the above, if the hard drive is NTFS, the
bootable CD-ROM won't even be able see/access the hard drive -- AT ALL.

There's nothing wrong with having the CD, and it's a fine way to reflash
a BIOS, as far as that goes. But understand the limitations (one of
which is you won't be able to save the old BIOS on the CD).

Microsoft's "recovery console" is essentially a 7 megabyte version of
MS-DOS that has NTFS support (read and write, providing that no
permissions are restricted and no encryption is set). However, I don't
know how to get that onto a bootable CD, although I'm sure that it is
possible.

 

[CeeBee]

alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus:

That's bad advice. Always flash the latest BIOS carefully. New BIOSs
always contain much more than what the indicated changes are such as
later versions of CPU microcode.

It remains to be seen if my advice is "bad advice". At least your advice
is not the advice of the manufacturer of your motherboard: they
specifically tell you to update your BIOS only if it's _necessary_.

To be more precise, ASUS tells you in Engrish:

"Updating the BIOS only if you have problems and you are sure that the
new BIOS revision will solve your problems. Careless updating may result
to more problems with the motherboard!"
(http://www.asus.com.tw/support/english/techref/bios/intro.aspx)

With a modest attention to detail
there is a very small risk.

If you follow newsgroups about motherboards on a daily basis and read
the numerous accounts of BIOS flashes gone haywire, you'll see how high
that risk _really_ is.


--
CeeBee


"I don't know half of you
half as well as I should like;
and I like less than half of you
half as well as you deserve."

 

[P2B]

povmec wrote:

[snip]

To all:

Now before burning the CD, I'm trying to put together everything is nice to
have on a bootable DOS disk for emergency or testing purpose. I collected
the latest few BIOS and matching AFUDOS for my motherboard (PC4800-E-DLX),
memtest86. What else would be smart to include on the CD before burning it?

Note that memtest86 is standalone (kernel is Linux IIRC), i.e. it does
not run under DOS. If you want a CD that can boot DOS or memtest86, it
will need at least two boot images and a boot catalog.

I have always built multi-boot CDs by hand, using a hex editor while
keeping a hardcopy of the El-Torito specification close by (since I'm
not aware of any Windows-based software which can do the job), but the
results have usually been disappointing because very few motherboard
BIOSes fully support El-Torito - most can handle 1.44MB floppy emulation
and custom emulation as used on Microsoft OS installation discs, but
very few properly support hard disk emulation, 2.88MB floppy emulation,
or multiple boot images.

Adaptec's SCSI BIOS could reasonably be considered a reference El-Torito
implementation - but few systems have a SCSI CD-ROM on an Adaptec host
adapter available these days, so IMHO multi-boot CDs are rarely worth
the trouble.

P2B

 

[P2B]

Well, keep this in mind:

In general, the CD will only run MS-DOS, not Windows.

Several recipes for booting Windows from read-only media have been
published, but I agree - in general they are severely limited in capability.

More to the point, because of the above, if the hard drive is NTFS, the
bootable CD-ROM won't even be able see/access the hard drive -- AT ALL.

True, unless you have an NTFSDOS or ERD Commander license - or have
figured out how to port a standalone version of the Recovery Console.

There's nothing wrong with having the CD, and it's a fine way to reflash
a BIOS, as far as that goes. But understand the limitations (one of
which is you won't be able to save the old BIOS on the CD).

That's where NTFSDOS comes in handy - save the old BIOS to the hard drive.

Microsoft's "recovery console" is essentially a 7 megabyte version of
MS-DOS that has NTFS support (read and write, providing that no
permissions are restricted and no encryption is set). However, I don't
know how to get that onto a bootable CD, although I'm sure that it is
possible.

Sure about that? My understanding is the Recovery Console uses the NT
kernel (i.e. it's essentially Microsoft's version of ERD Commander), and
therefore is not an option for both saving the original BIOS and
flashing an update. In any case, porting it to a bootable CD is quite a
challenge since you must use custom emulation to accomodate the size of
the image.

P2B

 

[JBM]

That's true, however not the point of my response.
The OP wanted to create it "to be run before the OS loads", especially for
updating BIOS etc.
Of course booting over a CD Rom or any bootable media _will_ load an OS.
He probably meant: "before the Windows GUI starts".


--
CeeBee


"I don't know half of you
half as well as I should like;
and I like less than half of you
half as well as you deserve."

What else could he have ment? He was asking if he could
boot with a CDrom to flash the bios and I thought you
were saying it couldn't be done.

Jim M

 

[Lil' Dave]

alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus:



It remains to be seen if my advice is "bad advice". At least your advice
is not the advice of the manufacturer of your motherboard: they
specifically tell you to update your BIOS only if it's _necessary_.

To be more precise, ASUS tells you in Engrish:

"Updating the BIOS only if you have problems and you are sure that the
new BIOS revision will solve your problems. Careless updating may result
to more problems with the motherboard!"
(http://www.asus.com.tw/support/english/techref/bios/intro.aspx)


If you follow newsgroups about motherboards on a daily basis and read
the numerous accounts of BIOS flashes gone haywire, you'll see how high
that risk _really_ is.


--
CeeBee


"I don't know half of you
half as well as I should like;
and I like less than half of you
half as well as you deserve."

Must be another language here. Risk being high/big or low/small or some
percentage is based on numbers succeeding or numbers failing by the total
number. Haven't seen anyone quote such a number and its source of
information.

The results of a botched bios flash do suck, however high or low the risk.
For many, there is no recovery from this. The dead weight doesn't even make
a good paperweight.

 

[Tim]

Its probably a good time about now to mention BartPE.

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

- Tim

 

[Ron Reaugh]

alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus:



It remains to be seen if my advice is "bad advice".

Always flash the latest BIOS carefully.

At least your advice
is not the advice of the manufacturer of your motherboard: they
specifically tell you to update your BIOS only if it's _necessary_.

No, the first thing that happens most often when you call tech support is
"do you have the latest BIOS?". The same happens for debugging most any
other problem. Get ahead of that curve and get the latest stuff BEFORE a
problem comes up and then you wont wonder nor have to deal with flashing in
the middle of some other problem.

Creaful flashing has very LOW risk.

To be more precise, ASUS tells you in Engrish:

"Updating the BIOS only if you have problems and you are sure that the
new BIOS revision will solve your problems.

They all do that to minimize their potential tech support load but as soon
as anything happens then it's the first thing they want you to do.

Careless updating may result
to more problems with the motherboard!"
(http://www.asus.com.tw/support/english/techref/bios/intro.aspx)

Giant meteroid impact could also result in unfortunate consequences.

In most cases a problem flash can be rocovered from. The risk is low.
Mobos are not that expensive. Debugging time is expensive.

If you follow newsgroups about motherboards on a daily basis and read
the numerous accounts of BIOS flashes gone haywire, you'll see how high
that risk _really_ is.

Yes, it tells you the risk is next to ZERO if done carefully. Everyone
knows that NG postings distill problems and there aren't that many reports.
The VAST majority that have no problems don't come here and therefore post
nothing. Anyone who has the wherewithall to find his/her way to this NG
should be told to always flash the latest BIOS. That's been the rule of
thumb amongst all the competent techies I know since 1980.