You CAN flash your BIOS
Serdar Yegulalp

A lot of Windows 2000 admins find themselves in a tight spot when they realize they have no way of booting to DOS to flash firmware, since firmware can't be flashed through Windows 2000 itself. It's never a bad idea to have a DOS boot disk handy, but if you don't, there's a solution.

On the Windows 2000 CD-ROM, there's a directory VALUEADD3RDPARTYCA_ANTIV, which contains an antivirus utility that can be "re-purposed" for simply booting to DOS. Go into the directory, insert a blank 1.44 MB diskette into drive A:. Click on Start.Run and type makedisk in the dialog box.

When the disk finishes creating, delete the autoexec.bat file on the floppy, and all of the files except for the following:

COMMAND.COM
CONFIG.SYS
DRVSPACE.BIN
HIMEM.SYS
IO.SYS
MSDOS.SYS

Simply boot the floppy to enter DOS mode. You can place whatever firmware flash utilities you like on the floppy as well, since there should be a fair amount of room left over.

Serdar Yegulalp is the editor of the Windows 2000 Power Users Newsletter.

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This was first published in September 2001

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