I have put this little guide together for people using Vista that would like to update their bios from the HDD, which is the safest way possible, also using this method is a lot faster, safer and more convenient than any of the other methods used.
How to Shrink a Partition in Vista:
1. Press Win+R to open the run box.
2. Type in diskmgmt.msc and click OK.
3. Press the Continue button if you need to grant permission.
4. Right-click on the partition you wish to shrink.
5. Select Shrink Volume...
6. In the highlighted part "Enter the amount of space to shrink in MB:" just choose "8MB" and click the Shrink button.
Now all you need to do is right click on the "Unallocated" section of the drive and select "New Simple Volume" (See pic below) and follow the instructions to create and format a new partition, MAKE SHURE YOU FORMAT THE PARTITION AS FAT and NOT FAT32 or NTFS.
Thats it, you're all done, you can now extract your bios flash files to the newly created drive and start your system using a DOS boot Floppy/CD, eg: Windows 98 boot Floppy or Windows 98 CD, or a bootable USB flash drive, if you use the Windows 98 boot Floppy/CD just select to start your system "Witout CD-ROM support", when you see the "A:\>" prompt just type c: and press enter, at the C:\> promt type dir and press enter, this will enable you to see all your bios flash files and flash utility, at this point you can flash your bios as normal.
BONUS > If you have an ASUS motherboard that supports the EZ Flash feature you don't need any DOS boot Floppy's/CDs or USB flash drives to flash the bios, you can just reboot your system and enter the bios, once in the bios navigate to Tools > EZ Flash, when you enter the EZ Flash utility you will see the bios file on your new 8MB HDD partition, you can then flash and save your bios to and from the new FAT partition on your HDD.
The above (EZ Flash) method may also work with other brands of motherboard, eg: Gigabyte QFlash or similar.
Hope this helps!
How to Shrink a Partition in Vista:
1. Press Win+R to open the run box.
2. Type in diskmgmt.msc and click OK.
3. Press the Continue button if you need to grant permission.
4. Right-click on the partition you wish to shrink.
5. Select Shrink Volume...
6. In the highlighted part "Enter the amount of space to shrink in MB:" just choose "8MB" and click the Shrink button.
Now all you need to do is right click on the "Unallocated" section of the drive and select "New Simple Volume" (See pic below) and follow the instructions to create and format a new partition, MAKE SHURE YOU FORMAT THE PARTITION AS FAT and NOT FAT32 or NTFS.
Thats it, you're all done, you can now extract your bios flash files to the newly created drive and start your system using a DOS boot Floppy/CD, eg: Windows 98 boot Floppy or Windows 98 CD, or a bootable USB flash drive, if you use the Windows 98 boot Floppy/CD just select to start your system "Witout CD-ROM support", when you see the "A:\>" prompt just type c: and press enter, at the C:\> promt type dir and press enter, this will enable you to see all your bios flash files and flash utility, at this point you can flash your bios as normal.
BONUS > If you have an ASUS motherboard that supports the EZ Flash feature you don't need any DOS boot Floppy's/CDs or USB flash drives to flash the bios, you can just reboot your system and enter the bios, once in the bios navigate to Tools > EZ Flash, when you enter the EZ Flash utility you will see the bios file on your new 8MB HDD partition, you can then flash and save your bios to and from the new FAT partition on your HDD.
The above (EZ Flash) method may also work with other brands of motherboard, eg: Gigabyte QFlash or similar.
Hope this helps!
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