How to make a bootable disk to flash Bios.doc

How to make a bootable disk to flash Bios?

Abstract
Commonly for beginners are puzzled on how to make a bootable floppy disk which can be used to flash bios. This page demonstrates couple of easy, and simple step by step methods to make a bootable disk.

Things to know prior to making a bootable disk
During initial installation of Windows98se/Me (except Win2000/NT4.0/NT Work Station), setup program will ask if you wish to make a bootable floppy disk. Or the startup disk created from Control Panel>Add/Remove Programs>Startup Disk.
   The bootable disk created from the above two methods are "traditional" bootable floppy disk. Which contains not only the bootable portion of the MS-DOS operating system, but also auto executing file (autoexec.bat), system configuration file (config.sys), some DOS command files and CD-ROM DOS drivers etc. All these files occupies nearly 93% of the floppy disk volume, leaving not enough rooms for bios flash utility and bios file. Not only that, the loaded system files in autoexec.bat and config.sys will occupy some memory from the available 640K conventional memory. And due to "insufficient memory" the bios cannot be flashed.
   Therefore, in order to make a bootable floppy disk to flash bios, all you need is the bootable portion of the MS-DOS operating system without the additional system drivers and command line files. The trimmed down version of the "traditional" boot disk in this page will also be known as "simplified" bootable floppy disk.

Making a simplified bootable floppy disk under Windows98
Since Win98 is build based on DOS infrastructure, therefore we can make the bootable floppy disk we desire. However, the DOS environment under Win98 isn't the real pure DOS environment, but a virtual DOS environment. That is why flashing of bios in the DOS environment under Win98 is not allowed, and Windows has control over read/write of the bios.  

Method 1 : Making a bootable floppy disk under DOS command prompt

Step 1: Click "Start" button located on the bottom left hand corner of the screen, then Programs, followed by clicking on MS-DOS Prompt to go into to DOS mode.

Step 2: Under DOS prompt, type 'format a: /q/s' (without the ' ' and note the blank space key)
This command will perform a quick format of the floppy disk in drive a: and copy the bootable system files. (The /q is optional if you have a blank disk)

Step 3: Make sure you have a blank disk (and not something important on disk). Put the isk into drive a: and hit ENTER when you're ready to proceed.

Step 4: The quick format and system file transfer will take about 30 seconds to complete.

Step 5: Enter the volume label for the bootable disk you've just created, or hit ENTER for none.

Step 6: The disk format summary shows system files only occupying about 27% of floppy disk, leaving 1MB of free space for self-executing self-flash bios file (flash utility + bios file). Please note that if the downloaded file (.exe) is greater than 500KB, then please copy the .exe bios file to a blank floppy disk and execute bios flash from that disk after boot into DOS. 

Step 7: If you wish to quick format another floppy disk then type "y", otherwise type "n".

Step 8: Type "exit" to close the DOS window, or just click X button located on the top right.

Method 2 : Making a bootable floppy disk under Windows

It's really up to your choice if you wish to do a quick or full format of the floppy. If the floppy to be used has been previously formatted then a quick format (30sec) will save a lot of time waiting to get it fully formatted (2min10sec). Just copying system files to floppy disk can only make the floppy disk bootable (and not erase any files on floppy), in order to prevent any minute possibility of virus contamination this method is not advised.

Making a simplified bootable floppy disk under WindowsME and Windows2000
Due to the fact that WinME and Win2000 no longer supports pure DOS environment, there's no options in format a: to make a system disk (or even copy system files). There are some bootable disk images available on the internet for download, which was tailor made for OS which cannot make bootable floppy disk anymore.
   Website such as Bootdisk.com provides several bootable disk images, and DrDOS7.X is the simplified bootable disk image file (without additional drivers) for flashing bios. To make a bootable floppy disk, download it first and execute drdflash.exe, insert a blank floppy disk when prompt and it will copy the bootable disk image onto the floppy disk. When that's done you can copy the bios files to that floppy disk. Restart the system and boot from floppy drive a: into pure DOS environment. Now you can begin flashing your bios.