Create a Bootable Pen Drive & Flash Bios

I'm completely thick and the equivalent of someone's nan when it comes to things like the "bios" and "bootable pen drives", so if anyone could help, I'd appreciate a simple step-by-step guide on exactly what to do (what to type, what to click and when etc.) to create a bootable pen drive and flash the latest bios which uses lamens terms to explain including what software to use and where I can find it all using as much detail as possible.

Specifically, I'm using XP Home Service Pack 3, so if possible could the guide contain software designed for XP? I currently have the lowest original bios version, but I'd like to upgrade to v.3305. I've already tried once but with the lack of simple explanations I failed to even create a bootable pen drive successfully...

I'd appreciate any help anyone could give! Thanks! :mrgreen:

 

Here is a pretty straight forward guide to creating a bootable flash drive and upgrading the BIOS.

http://www.netbooktech.com/2008/10/01/i ... -one-bios/

 

I managed to make a bootable USB key the other day. It took a while to work out a sure fire way to do it, so I thought I would jot down what I did here. I used two applications: virtual floppy drive and the HP USB disk storage format tool. They are available for free at these URLs:

http://chitchat.at.infoseek.co.jp/vmware/vfd.html

http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=197

If these URLs do not work, just google "virtual floppy drive" and "hp usb disk storage format tool". There are loads of sites offering downloads.

Virtual Floppy Drive is a bit of a fiddle but its easy once you know what to do. Unzip the download and run the vfdwin.exe file. On the driver tab, click the start button. Then switch to the drive 0 tab. Click the change button to assign a drive letter (I used b then click open/create. In the dialogue box that pops up, leave the image file field blank, keep the disk type as RAM and the media type as 3.5" 1.44Mb and click the create button.

Why do this? Because now we can format this virtual b: drive and tell Windows XP to make it bootable, which copies the XP boot stuff onto it. Leave the Virtual Floppy Drive application running. Open My Computer and find the b: drive. It may appear as a 5 1/4" drive according to Windows, but that does not matter. Right-click the drive and choose format. In the format dialogue box that pops up, leave the file system as FAT and leave the quick format and the create an MS-DOS startup disk options unchecked. Click the start button and wait for the format to complete. Once that is done, check the create an MS-DOS startup disk option. This will grey out all of the other options. Click the start button again and then click the close button once the copy operation has completed to close the dialogue box.

Now install the HP USB disk storage format tool. Run the install file and click through the various option screens. Once it has installed, insert your USB stick and run the tool from the start menu. A dialogue box that looks similar to the Windows XP format dialogue box should appear. Select your USB stick from the device list, choose FAT for the file system and check the create a DOS startup disk option. Click the small button with the dots on it and choose the b: drive (or whatever drive the virtual floppy drive application created) then click start.

Once the format and the copy operation has completed, your USB stick should be bootable. Now you can uninstall the HP USB disk storage format tool using the add/remove programs control panel. Remember that the virtual floppy drive application will still be running in the background. Select it, go into the drive 0 tab and click the close button to remove the virtual drive and say no when it asks whether you wish to save an image of the drive. Then select the driver tab and click the uninstall button. Once that is done you can close the application and delete the application files from your hard drive.

There may be more elegant ways to do this, including the method described above, but I thought I would mention this way because I know it works.

 

Thank you very much!

I'll give all that a try and I'll be sure to let you know how it goes!

(If I don't let you know it's because I did something wrong and wrecked everything!!)

 

It worked! :shock:

Hooray! I expected it to be a catastrophic disaster!

Thank you so much for your help I really appreciate it. :mrgreen: