Older MB P4P800...is there a way to update bios without a floppy?

[dave]

I have no floppy drives anymore.

[Paul]

dave wrote:
> I have no floppy drives anymore.

There are CDs you can use to boot DOS. For example, I think
the Seatools for DOS package from Seagate, may use FreeDOS and a
RAM based file system, to hold the tools they need. Not only
does the Seagate CD image contain Seatools, it also includes
FreeDOS to boot the computer with. The RAM based file system is
used, as the application is compressed and needs to be extracted
before it can be used. (Note - If using Seatools for DOS CD,
disconnect your external USB hard drive enclosure. Mine has a
Cypress chip and the Seatools CD managed to corrupt the
Cypress chip config space info. That was easily fixed, using
a recipe from the web, but it's better to just avoid that
if possible. The Windows version of Seatools doesn't do that.)

FreeDOS is a substitute for MSDOS.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedos

http://www.freedos.org/

I've also seen references to DRDOS in the past.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DR-DOS

And this page gives an example of how you go about
building an MSDOS boot CD. To give a better idea
of the restrictions that the boot image maker is under.

http://infocellar.com/CD/Boot-CD.htm

Not every one of these things, works with every
piece of hardware you can find. There can always be little
issues to gum up the works. And re-mastering a CD image,
isn't exactly that easy. On my Asrock motherboard, I spent
the better part of a day, changing stuff on my MSDOS floppy,
to work out the kinks. I'd hate to have to do that to a
CD image.

If your version of DOS is modern enough, it reads FAT32.
Make sure there is a drive in the computer with at least
one FAT32 partition, and put the BIOS flash file on that.
I think I've done some flashing with the data file on
C: in the root (where C: was FAT32). In the case of
using some FreeDOS CD, you might also put the AFUDOS
flasher program on your hard drive. In DOS, you can
change drive letters, and then run the executable from the
hard drive.

There is even some software, that supports NTFS from DOS,
but it is missing LFN (long file name support), which
reduces its utility considerably.

I'm sure you'll be able to cook up something :-) There is
plenty of junk available to play with.

What I would do as a first step, is test your environment
and see if you can back up the existing BIOS image. That
would be a good first step when you get your boot CD running.

*******

Note that, the BIOS image is not a "constant". If you burn
a new BIOS and the checksum is "abcd" and you boot the computer
once, shut down and then make an archival copy of the BIOS from
DOS, the checksum will have changed. The DMI/ESCD section
gets overwritten by the BIOS during POST, with updated info.
Only "sections" of the BIOS are immutable, not the whole thing.
So if investigating your archived copy, and comparing it to
an original file, be prepared for the DMI/ESCD section to be
different. So when I suggest making an archival copy as a
test, don't be surprised if the resulting file, doesn't
match a copy on the Asus site. But the section that is the
actual (read-only) BIOS code, should be the same.

BIOS code (actually, a series of code modules, with names.
Content is compressed and must be decompressed if you
want to read it for some reason.)
DMI
ESCD
Boot block

*******

Some of the Asus motherboards have three BIOS flashing options.
But I suppose the issue in this case, is EZflash is looking for
a floppy, and none is present.

Always read any available warnings on the Asus download page,
in the BIOS section. Some of the motherboards have pretty
convoluted bugs, and workarounds. I don't know if the
"release notes" section has survived the Asus web site
redesign. The notes were helpful in avoiding the worst
of the pitfalls.

As an example of a crappy pitfall, some motherboards, if
you use "CrashFree" BIOS recovery, and plug in the motherboard
CD to install what you think is the "default" BIOS, the motherboard
gets bricked :-) And then you need to find some other means
to flash the board (pull chip, hot flash or use an EPROM programmer).
So when you see "Bad checksum", it isn't always safe to plug in
the motherboard CD and allow the board to flash itself. Checking
the release notes on the BIOS download page, may warn of stupid
stuff like that, that they allowed to leave the plant.

Even though they offer three BIOS flashing options, in some cases,
two of the three methods are busted.

HTH,
Paul

[dave]

Paul <nos...@needed.com> wrote in news:jg8241$64d$1...@dont-email.me:

Thanks for the detailed reply Paul.
I made the Seagate bootable cd and it wouldn't boot, so I tried it
in another machine....no problem! Obviously there are issues
with the P4P800 machine. (I had been having problems and thought I
would try to update the bios as it still had the original)
Since that happened I started to swap out components and found a bad
ram stick.
So now I am still going to try to update the bios using your
suggestions and will report back here if I can get it to work.
Thanks again

[dave]

dave <dave...@hotmail.com> wrote in news:AjkWq.21597$en3.12805
@unlimited.newshosting.com:

I followed the instructions found here http://infocellar.com/CD/Boot-
CD.htm and added the Aufdos.exe and the P4P1019.rom (new bios) to it.
It boots just fine but there is no sign of those two files, just
lists 24 files and 5 folders......looks like more work is needed!

[Paul]

dave wrote:

> I followed the instructions found here http://infocellar.com/CD/Boot-
> CD.htm and added the Aufdos.exe and the P4P1019.rom (new bios) to it.
> It boots just fine but there is no sign of those two files, just
> lists 24 files and 5 folders......looks like more work is needed!
>

Could you install a hard drive with FAT32 partition on it ?

Perhaps if Afudos.exe and P4P1019.rom were placed on a FAT32
hard drive, you wouldn't need to remaster the Infocellar CD any more.

When you get to the DOS prompt, just change drive letters, as in

e:

and then you'd be CD'ed into e: . Do a "dir" to see the contents.

dir

For more help with the ancient world of DOS, I like this page. This
helped me a lot, when I was hacking my DOS floppy for the Asrock beast.
On the Asrock, I had to "block off" some memory ranges, to prevent
DOS from croaking.

http://www.vfrazee.com/ms-dos/6.22/help/

Paul

[dave]

Paul <nos...@needed.com> wrote in news:jgjgsp$kj5$1...@dont-email.me:

Success!
I put the aufdos and p4p1019 on a fat 32 partition created on my hdd.
That partition label was "F". When I booted with the cd and tried to
change to it, I got an invalid directory message. So I changed to "C"
and there they were! I'm assuming it couldn't see the NTFS partition.
From there I took your advice and ran aufdos to save a copy of the bios.
It saved to the fat32 partition. At this point I stopped because I had
already updated using the Asus Update utility that comes with the MB,
(which I found by "reading the manual!!)
So if I could run aufdos.exe to save a bios copy, I see no reason it
would not update it too.
Thanks for the help Paul.