- Joined
- Nov 24, 2001
- Location
- Dallas, Georgia
What about the floppy that comes with the hard drive. It is bootable (for fdisk and format).
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Help with Bios
- Thread starter Wicked Klown
- Start date
Ummm, I know about the lack of dos in nt type OS's. But how does the OS on the hdd restrict how you access the bios? I thought that the basic input output sytem was not dependent upon the operating system installed on a hdd. I think that you are correct in that a dos bootdisk will not boot to an nt type file system, but please tell me that your motherboard resources are still free to be used without a harddrive attached. I thought that a command prompt boot disc was put into memory or as the win98 bootdisk calls it a virtual drive in memory.
?????
Later.
?????
Later.
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2001
Xp and the other NT based systems can run DOS, or more appropriately, DOS can run underneath of them. But he can't make a DOS disk, unless he is using a WINXP/ WIN98 dual boot system, or he has access to a computer that has WIN9x. That's why I recommended he download the necessary DOS files. Why they won't load, (or maybe it's that his system can't open the executable to load them to the floppy) is still an unsolved problem. DOS isn't part of the Basic Input Output System, it is an operating system above it.
Klownin, let us know what you find out.
That's not a bad idea Silver. I've never tried to load a flash utility onto a hardrive disk, but if you have one lying around Klownin, it's worth a shot.
Klownin, let us know what you find out.
That's not a bad idea Silver. I've never tried to load a flash utility onto a hardrive disk, but if you have one lying around Klownin, it's worth a shot.
OP
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2000
- Location
- Sheboygan, Wisconsin
- Thread Starter
- #24
Well here`s what happened. I tried til about 4 this morning and finaly gave up. This morning after I woke up I called the local shop. To my luck the tech just bought a Dragon+ and got the IDE channel 3 and 4 working.
O.K. I am with you now. Am I correct here? Klownin79, you only have one computer, and that computer will not make you a boot up disc? Thus since you have XP you cannot make the standard command prompt disc?
And Repo, am I correct here? IF Klownin had a command prompt boot disc from say 95 or 98, he COULD put the floppy in, and since it would boot first, a piece of memory would hold the dos application while he used the flash utility, OR is it that when a command prompt boot disc is booted from, it actually needs dos on the primary hdd to be usable. I guess thought that if you had a dos command prompt boot disc and it booted first you did not even need a harddrive attached to the machine to get the prompt.
And if so, how about a windows NT bootdisc. I have one that is on a floppy and does about the same think as a 98 bootup disc.
Questions from those who never stop asking.
Later.
And Repo, am I correct here? IF Klownin had a command prompt boot disc from say 95 or 98, he COULD put the floppy in, and since it would boot first, a piece of memory would hold the dos application while he used the flash utility, OR is it that when a command prompt boot disc is booted from, it actually needs dos on the primary hdd to be usable. I guess thought that if you had a dos command prompt boot disc and it booted first you did not even need a harddrive attached to the machine to get the prompt.
And if so, how about a windows NT bootdisc. I have one that is on a floppy and does about the same think as a 98 bootup disc.
Questions from those who never stop asking.
Later.
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2001
Yes, the Win9x bootdisc contains the basic DOS OS, more than enough to do something as basic as run a flash utility. These days we are so used to how large modern operating systems are, we forget that DOS comes from a time when you had 100 meg harddrives. I'm going to try loading the DR.DOS bootdisc on the UPS computer at work today, it runs NT, and see what happens. When Unseen Menace told me that he had run the executable, and loaded the files on the floppy successfully, I forgot to ask him if he were running XP with FAT 32, or NTFS. You have the option to choose with XP. Klownin has NTFS. That may be the crucial difference.
Edit: I downloaded the Dr.Dos disc from bootdisk, and it opened and loaded to the floppy no problem, then went straight to the a: on reboot. This is a machine running NT. Klownin, did the guy who fixed your IDE channel have anything ot say about your not being able to get the BIOS disc to load?
Edit: I downloaded the Dr.Dos disc from bootdisk, and it opened and loaded to the floppy no problem, then went straight to the a: on reboot. This is a machine running NT. Klownin, did the guy who fixed your IDE channel have anything ot say about your not being able to get the BIOS disc to load?
Last edited:
- Joined
- Mar 15, 2002
- Location
- Texas City, TX
Hey Klownin79,
I know your really wanting to do the BIOS upgrade but lemme tell ya what happened to me on my Dragon+. Mine shipped with the 2Ba2 bios and I had a good quality stick of RAM. When I went for agressive memory settings the Pc either locked up on the spot or rebooted during mem testing. So, in short, I went BACKWARDS to the 2ba1 bios and ALL my memory settings are good to go. If you do decide to flash the bios make SURE to test the mem settings extensively (I used Sandra) to make sure your stable. Just my 2cents. Hope it helps.
-shane
I know your really wanting to do the BIOS upgrade but lemme tell ya what happened to me on my Dragon+. Mine shipped with the 2Ba2 bios and I had a good quality stick of RAM. When I went for agressive memory settings the Pc either locked up on the spot or rebooted during mem testing. So, in short, I went BACKWARDS to the 2ba1 bios and ALL my memory settings are good to go. If you do decide to flash the bios make SURE to test the mem settings extensively (I used Sandra) to make sure your stable. Just my 2cents. Hope it helps.
-shane
UMMM... I am truly sorry, but there is a misconception of sorts here. Repo, I do understand most of what you are talking about. IF what Klownin is trying to do is flash his system board bios, you know, the main bios for all the motherboard functions, he does not need a special NTFS or NT bootdisc. ALL YOU NEED IS A FORMATTED SYSTEM DISC FROM ANY WIN9X MACHINE. THEN COPY THE AWARD FLASH UTILITY ONTO THAT DISC AND ALSO THE .BIN FILE YOU WANT TO FLASH WITH. ONCE YOU HAVE THAT ON THE DISC, PUT THE DISC INTO THE FLOPPY DRIVE AND REBOOT. UPON REBOOT, YOU SHOULD BE BOOTING FROM THE FLOPPY DRIVE AND IT SHOULD SAY, STARTING WIN9X, AND THEN YOU WILL END AT THIS
A:\
ONCE YOU ARE HERE, TYPE IN AWDFLASH
THE AWARD FLASH PROGRAM WILL START AND THEN JUST FOLLOW DIRECTIONS.
I am not trying to flame anyone or get you upset, but this is how it works. I am running xp pro, and I just got done putting the system disc I made from win98se in and rebooted and I was able to start the flash program no problem.
If Klownin is NOT trying to flash the mainboard bios, but something else then Repo seems to really know his stuff and I am full of crap, but if you are doing the mainboard bios, IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT OS YOU ARE USING, BECAUSE BOOTING FROM A FLOPPY COMES BEFORE YOUR HARDDRIVE, AND IT DOES WORK.
Sorry again.
Later.
A:\
ONCE YOU ARE HERE, TYPE IN AWDFLASH
THE AWARD FLASH PROGRAM WILL START AND THEN JUST FOLLOW DIRECTIONS.
I am not trying to flame anyone or get you upset, but this is how it works. I am running xp pro, and I just got done putting the system disc I made from win98se in and rebooted and I was able to start the flash program no problem.
If Klownin is NOT trying to flash the mainboard bios, but something else then Repo seems to really know his stuff and I am full of crap, but if you are doing the mainboard bios, IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT OS YOU ARE USING, BECAUSE BOOTING FROM A FLOPPY COMES BEFORE YOUR HARDDRIVE, AND IT DOES WORK.
Sorry again.
Later.
Sorry for another one but I forgot something.
Klownin, find a win9x machine and get to the desktop. Go to the dosprompt. Put a floppy in the drive. From the dosprompt, type this:
c:\windows\format a: /s
This will format that floppy as a bootup disc. Then copy the award flash utility and the .bin file (2ba2).
Repo, I did not mean to say that if Klownin is trying to flash his mobo bios then I am correct and you are full of crap. Sorry. You obviously know quite a lot, probably more than me.
Good luck Klownin.
Later.
Klownin, find a win9x machine and get to the desktop. Go to the dosprompt. Put a floppy in the drive. From the dosprompt, type this:
c:\windows\format a: /s
This will format that floppy as a bootup disc. Then copy the award flash utility and the .bin file (2ba2).
Repo, I did not mean to say that if Klownin is trying to flash his mobo bios then I am correct and you are full of crap. Sorry. You obviously know quite a lot, probably more than me.
Good luck Klownin.
Later.
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2001
A: he was trying to flash his mainboard BIOS. B: he did not (apparently) have access to a machine running Win9x. C: in that case you can download a DOS file, (in this case the Dr. DOS from bootdisk) and load it to a floppy, even with a machine that is running NT or XP (I proved this to myself at work) load the flash utility and the BIOS file set it to boot from the floppy, and it will come right up. D: the real mystery is why it didn't work for him.
- Joined
- Feb 20, 2002
- Location
- Phoenix AZ
I just downloaded the winflash utility from the SOYO taiwan site and flashed it from winXP. No need for a boot disk at all
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2001
You can flash BIOS from Windows now? Can you give some more details? Does Soyo recommend that you do it this way, or do they have a recommendation either way?
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2002
- Location
- Toronto, Canada
It feels like it's about me....
People, I've been having exactly the same problem. Although I downloded DrDos 7 from bootdisk.com, and installed it on a floppy, working from WinXP, as soon as I try to boot from it, it either goes directly into WinXP after searching for something on the boot disk, or if I disable all the HD's, it comes back with NON SYSTEM DISK, INSERT a SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER.
Today at work, I got a boot disk made on a Win98 machine. I'm heading home, and will give it another try.
I will let you know...
Oh, by the way - renegade44 you said you had flashed it uder WinXP? According to the Soyo Taiwan site, no WinXP support on that winflash...I just want to make sure it's not a typo...
People, I've been having exactly the same problem. Although I downloded DrDos 7 from bootdisk.com, and installed it on a floppy, working from WinXP, as soon as I try to boot from it, it either goes directly into WinXP after searching for something on the boot disk, or if I disable all the HD's, it comes back with NON SYSTEM DISK, INSERT a SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER.
Today at work, I got a boot disk made on a Win98 machine. I'm heading home, and will give it another try.
I will let you know...
Oh, by the way - renegade44 you said you had flashed it uder WinXP? According to the Soyo Taiwan site, no WinXP support on that winflash...I just want to make sure it's not a typo...
Last edited:
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2002
- Location
- Southern California
ok....I just did this a couple of days ago. First I had to replace my FDD with a new one as it was really the culprit in not formatting in XP. Once I did that, I was able to go into my computer with an emply floppy and right click to the menu and select format. From there I simply selected format ms dos boot disk. After that I loaded awdflash and the 2ba3.bin file. That was it. I restarted with the floppy still in the machine and it booted into the a> prompt, where I typed awdflash.exe and it did the rest from there. I just typed in the new file name and saved the old and it programmed just fine. So simply said, you can do the whole thing right from Windows XP. Just format the disk with the menu option format MS DOS BOOTABLE DISK and your set!
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2002
- Location
- Toronto, Canada
I think my problem is of a different nature. My floppy drive will read the floppy from WinXP, even format it as DOS start-up disk, but it won't boot from it.
What's more puzzling, the original floppy that I got from a buddy of mine at work that I know is good won't work as a boot-up either.
I checked and rechecked my settings in the BIOS - First Boot Device: Floppy, Boot-Up Floopy Seek: Enabled, and it just won't do it...
Any ideas why?
What's more puzzling, the original floppy that I got from a buddy of mine at work that I know is good won't work as a boot-up either.
I checked and rechecked my settings in the BIOS - First Boot Device: Floppy, Boot-Up Floopy Seek: Enabled, and it just won't do it...
Any ideas why?
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2002
- Location
- galesburg, Illinois
soyo dragon+ bios flash
well from i can tell, i seem to be one who had no problem flashing me bios from a floppy. the floppy has to formatted in dos first. then you download the awdflash.exe then you download the bios you want. restart the computer with the disc in the floppy. the computer will run to a screen that will have a:\ showing. type awdflash.exe and hit enter, it will then ask for the bios. enter it with .bin at the end of it and rnter. save lod bios, what ever it was then it will ask to install the new bios and there you have it. the screen will ask you to remove the disc and it wil reboot and your new bios is installed. it's not that hard. of course it took me 3 times til i figured it out.
well from i can tell, i seem to be one who had no problem flashing me bios from a floppy. the floppy has to formatted in dos first. then you download the awdflash.exe then you download the bios you want. restart the computer with the disc in the floppy. the computer will run to a screen that will have a:\ showing. type awdflash.exe and hit enter, it will then ask for the bios. enter it with .bin at the end of it and rnter. save lod bios, what ever it was then it will ask to install the new bios and there you have it. the screen will ask you to remove the disc and it wil reboot and your new bios is installed. it's not that hard. of course it took me 3 times til i figured it out.
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2002
- Location
- Toronto, Canada
My, my... It was a dead FD afterall...Went out and bought a used one - still nothing, then I exchanged it for another used one - no go!
Finally, I bought a new one for $20 CDN - problems are gone....
Another thing that happened later on - sudenly, the computer wouldn't run even with the default 133 MHz - just 100 MHz.
I tried, what seemed like everything, and couldn't find the problem. Finally took it to a store where I had bought all the parts - after 3 and a half hours, we got as far as making it work with a new mobo, out of the case, but not when we put everything in the case.
When I came home, I removed all the dirves, and left only the video card - still only 100 MHz.
As a last resort, I removed the digital output extension that comes with the C-Media with Soyo.
Believe it or not, this little sucker was pressing on a capacitor, and that was preventing the computer to run properly.
Now, without unlocking, 145 MHz, no prob.
Just put the card in a different position....
How about that?
Finally, I bought a new one for $20 CDN - problems are gone....
Another thing that happened later on - sudenly, the computer wouldn't run even with the default 133 MHz - just 100 MHz.
I tried, what seemed like everything, and couldn't find the problem. Finally took it to a store where I had bought all the parts - after 3 and a half hours, we got as far as making it work with a new mobo, out of the case, but not when we put everything in the case.
When I came home, I removed all the dirves, and left only the video card - still only 100 MHz.
As a last resort, I removed the digital output extension that comes with the C-Media with Soyo.
Believe it or not, this little sucker was pressing on a capacitor, and that was preventing the computer to run properly.
Now, without unlocking, 145 MHz, no prob.
Just put the card in a different position....
How about that?
