Re: BIOS upgrade

[Hugo Vanwoerkom <hvw59601@care2.com>]

Douglas Tutty wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 02, 2006 at 11:35:07AM -0600, Hugo Vanwoerkom wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I need to upgrade my BIOS.
> >
> > Generally it seems to involve getting freedos and putting it on a floppy 
> > with the updates.
> >
> > Googling isn't clear on recent reports.
> >
> > Has anyone done this lately and specifically how?
>
> I've only done it once and that was on my new Asus M2N-SLI that has a
> bios utility built right in to allow you to save the bios and update a
> new one.  No dos required at all, just the bios image on a floppy or USB
> stick (or on a MS partition on a hard drive).
>
> However, for my friend Justin Case, I still have dos 6.3.  I used dd to
> create floppy images and can make them whenever I need to.
> Unfortunatly, since 6.3 isn't public domain, I can't email it to you.
>
> When _does_ the licence on things like an old dos floppy expire or is it
> like Shakespear, 100 years after IBM (its IBM dos) dies?
>
> Doug.

Well, I found some sites, like:
http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm
that has an floppy image that contains a bare freedos and room to put 
the upgrade files on.

This:
http://odin.fdos.org/
has a floppy image of freedos and a readme that says to:

cat odin060.144 > /dev/fd0

Those images are all 1474560, apparently the size of an 1.44MB floppy.

The reason for all this is that I want to install XP from a 5 year old 
install CD that I have. But the manufacturer of my mobo Epox has a list 
of BIOS upgrades and one of them says:

"When On Chip USB control function was set all Enabled in BIOS setup 
install WinXP will hang."

So that seems to be a must for this mobo and the book is quite clear 
that you have to use a floppy to upgrade the BIOS.

I will find a place that still sells floppies and report back.

Hugo