# How to flash your motherboard bios the easy way

## malloc

I just found out a little document wich tells a way to flash your motherboard bios in a very very easy way. This is a great way to use on machines without floppy drives. 

Step one

First thing you need is a dos/windows bootdisk image. You can get one here.

Step two

Now you need to mount the image

```
mkdir tmp

mount -o loop -t vfat win98-boot.img tmp

```

Next get the latest bios image update from your mobo's manufacturer's site and also get the latest awdflash version available.

Next just copy the files into the dir where you mounted the bootdisk image.

```
cp AWDFASH.EXE biosupdate.file tmp/

umount tmp

```

You now have a bootdisk image with all the necessary files. 

Next we need to burn it into a cd (use a cd-rw since it's a shame to waste a cd with a 1Mb file).

Step three

Now let's make an iso image from the bootdisk image and burn it into the cd.

```
mkisofs -o image.iso -b win98-boot.img win98-boot.img

cdrecord dev=0,0,0 -vv -eject image.iso /* use dev=ATAPI:0,0,0 if you use atapi burning

```

Now you have a fully functional boot cd.

Step four

Now you just need to make sure that your cd drive is the first in the boot sequence. Just go into your bios setup and make sure it's the first boot drive.

Once this is all made, put the cd in your drive, reboot and you'll be dropped into an old dos prompt like this one.

```
A:/>
```

Step five (OPTIONAL)

This step is for award bios owners.

After you're in the dos prompt, you just need to run awdflash.exe and follow the on-screen instructions. You can't save your old bios image though but i think that's a small price to pay.

Anyway i just posted this since i think this is a great great way of doing something simple but that hasn't got any easy way of doing it under linux.

This guide was made using this document. [EDITED] The document writer is docelic so thank him for it please  :Smile:  [/EDITED] 

Please be careful when flashing any bios because you can kill your mobo.

Hope this helps.Last edited by malloc on Sat Feb 28, 2004 11:11 am; edited 1 time in total

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## revertex

Thank's a lot, very useful guide for people with a floppyless machine like mine!

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## hadees

thanks alot for the guide this used to be a big pain the butt to do

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## xo

cool tip. have just one question: what is win98-boot.img ? I mean is it regular .iso file?

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## malloc

 *xo wrote:*   

> cool tip. have just one question: what is win98-boot.img ? I mean is it regular .iso file?

 

Yup it's something like that.

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## wolfpakk

Thanks for the great guide, now i see no reason to have an ugly floppy drive wasting space in my computer  :Smile: 

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## OdinsDream

You'd think that there would be some way to use raincoat , or something like it, to flash BIOS chips while you're in the operating system. I mean, if it's been figured out for the xbox, being already such a secretive system, why not for modern PC hardware?

Does anyone know more about the reasons behind this? Maybe it's already possible...

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## NewBlackDak

Abit and Asus have windows flash utilities.  It checks their site for the latest update, downloads, installs, and asks you to restart.  I keep a 100MB /boot with DOS and my video, mobo, and optical drive flash utilities stored.  It also has several hardware tests.

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## xo

 *malloc wrote:*   

>  *xo wrote:*   cool tip. have just one question: what is win98-boot.img ? I mean is it regular .iso file? 
> 
> Yup it's something like that.

 

Thanks for houmoring me. It was late at night and my brain was asleep. Reading your post again I realised what it is.

Does anybody have a link to one of those bootable images so that one might download it? Can you do the flashing using FreeDos (is the name correct) ?

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## docelic

Hi, 

I am the original author of http://colt.projectgamma.com/bios/flashing.html

Nice to see you find it useful :)

Someone asked what's win98-boot.img; it's a bit-to-bit copy of a 1.44 dos boot disk that shipped with win98 (so it contains a boot sector, and a little filesystem you can boot into and get that silly dos prompt).

And yes, this would be doable with FreeDOS too; any dos prompt would serve the purpose.

-doc

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## AlterEgo

 *xo wrote:*   

> 
> 
> Does anybody have a link to one of those bootable images so that one might download it?

 

http://www.bootdisk.com/ Images & tutorials & more.

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## malloc

 *docelic wrote:*   

> Hi, 
> 
> I am the original author of http://colt.projectgamma.com/bios/flashing.html
> 
> Nice to see you find it useful 
> ...

 

Thanks for that great document, i'll edit the original post and put your nick in, ok? Sorry for not putting it before but i couldn't find it in the original site.

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