Quick Question: Updating BIOS on DS3

Hi all. I am going to build a new system in the next week or two. It will be a fresh build and install and want to flash the BIOS to the latest version before any OS/software installation. Board will be the Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3.

I do not have, and will not have, an FDD drive in the new system. Will I be able to boot off a USB key to flash it? Will I need to format the USB with some sort of DOS/bootable image so that the PC can boot up to a prompt? I believe on that key I will then just need to put the Gigabyte flashing utility and the latest image, correct?

Alternatively, I remember some motherboards I used in the past allowed you to update the BIOS from within the BIOS (as one of the options). If that is they case, can I do that with the DS3 using a USB key or even a CDR?

Cheers,
X

PS. one last questiom: if using the ICH8 SATA controller (which I believe is better than the Gigabyte controller) for a non-RAID setup, do I need to create a driver disk for an XP install again or will the SATA HDD be recognised?

Two ways to flash the bios on the ds3.
1. @BioS - windows program that can flash from the internet or a file that you choose after you download it.

2. Qflash - option to flash from within the bios maintenance menu. See the manual for directions on both. I think you can use a USB or CDR from Qflash.

**note.......one thing you should know is that is you happen to corrupt the bios on the DS3, there is really no way out. You cannot recover by booting from and flashing with a floppy. There is supposedly backup bios that it uses for a situation where the bios becomes corrupted, but I've seen it not work twice. That is why you will notice I'm not running a DS3 anymore LOL!! So, be careful out there :>

As for using the ICH8 instead of the GB(Jmicron controller). You won't need any additional drivers, but it also will not run in native Sata mode. The ICH8 does not support raid or ahci and will only run the drive in IDE emulation mode. Which means is talks to the drive as a Sata drive and talks to the OS as an IDE drive. Thus your throughput is not much better than a regular PATA IDE drive.

There are pros and cons to using or not using the GB(Jmicron) controller. It will let you run Raid. It will let you run Native Sata with NCQ. It had some problems in earlier releases that I've heard have been fixed. But it does not support the backup/recovery tools that are in the bios menu. You have to use the ICH8 drives to use those tools. In the end though the speed increase from using Native Sata is very significant.

So you can decide.