How do I update my bios under vista?

Supercow · 9 Apr 2007 at 21:52

How do I update my bios under vista (64 bit) ?

As title.
I dont have a floppy drive, but do have a USB flash drive, but neither boot from usb zip or... something rather, doesnt work.
Anyone know wtheck would do the job (none of the "old methods" work)

meths · 9 Apr 2007 at 22:54

Vista has nothing to do with whether your usb drive will boot or not. That's down to the actual bios settings as if it's listed before your HDD in the boot preferences order it should try to boot from that volume before loading Vista.

I'd suggest you double check your Bios settings.

Supercow · 10 Apr 2007 at 12:25

Done that, but I cannot make the flash drive a bootable disk, the option is greyed out when i right clikc it

bledd · 10 Apr 2007 at 13:53

most (i think all) motherboard makers have tools that run in windows that can flash the bios

if your pc is stable, then there's no reason not to do it in windows tbh, also if you do get any problems, its better to still be in windows so you can restore the old bios, because in dos you can't do this (system needs to be restarted to start the program again)

i've flashed in windows for years, flashed a shuttle in vista just last week

meths · 10 Apr 2007 at 14:16

I mostly use the diamondflash thing on the DFI site to flash my bios in windows and have never had any bother.

Not tried it in Vista yet though as there hasn't been a new bios revison for my board since the start of December 06.

Supercow · 10 Apr 2007 at 15:56

bledd. said:
most (i think all) motherboard makers have tools that run in windows that can flash the bios

if your pc is stable, then there's no reason not to do it in windows tbh, also if you do get any problems, its better to still be in windows so you can restore the old bios, because in dos you can't do this (system needs to be restarted to start the program again)

i've flashed in windows for years, flashed a shuttle in vista just last week

See thats the thing, I'm trying to flash my shuttle, and tried to use the utility that comes with it, but it says that my operating system is incompatible.
I have the latest SD37P2 which is one of the "vista capable" models

bledd · 10 Apr 2007 at 16:08

its called winflash or something yeah? there's two flashing tools that come with the driver cd, just download the newest version of whatever the windows tool is called

FirebarUK · 10 Apr 2007 at 16:11

http://forum.abit-usa.com/showthread.php?t=121953

Follow that method to making a USB pen bootable. Then flash the BIOS that way

Mint_Sauce · 10 Apr 2007 at 16:15

I used winflash in my Vista x86 home premium, no problems at all.

Supercow · 10 Apr 2007 at 16:37

I have 64 bit edition of Vista, and none of the winflashes I tried... from newest to older versions would install.

I'll try Firebar's suggestion tonight at home

Edit:Nope, can use Firebar's suggestion... that "Create DOS startup disk" is grey'ed out when i try and do it. Pic below is the one in that thread

FirebarUK · 10 Apr 2007 at 22:17

Do you have a laptop or alternate PC running XP or suchlike that you can run the HP utility on? Its probably due to it being on Vista x64.

DAS · 11 Apr 2007 at 19:56

One thing that puzzles me is how come you can flash a BIOS in Windows, when the BIOS kicks in as soon as you power on the PC and has little to do with the O/S?

csmager · 11 Apr 2007 at 20:46

DAS said:
One thing that puzzles me is how come you can flash a BIOS in Windows, when the BIOS kicks in as soon as you power on the PC and has little to do with the O/S?

The BIOS is usually read and used to initialise the PC at bootup, as you say. Bits are loaded into memory and then the OS (eventually) boots. At this point, it's not really accessed again.

As a result, you can rewrite the flash with no ill effects, and the new version will be loaded at the next boot.