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IBM Aptiva BIOS upgrade

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7 replies

by aitche

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Does anyone have any advice on how to upgrade the BIOS on an IBM Aptiva via CD rather than diskette, please? I have a need to upgrade such a machine, but the diskette drive does not work (possible motherboard fault, as the drive and cables have been changed), so I'm hoping to use a CD instead. System is Win '98.

7 replies

by dmiles

Never heard that it be done from a cd,using the floppy as bootable is required because it does not run into an issue of the drivers being loaded

I would not try flashing the bios from a cd because it would raise the posibility of failed flash

by thechas

First, does the Aptiva have the option to boot from a CD?

If so, you need to create a DOS boot CD.

Check out this TR article.

http://tinyurl.com/63kn

You can also check out the boot CD links at www.bootdisk.com

Include the flash program, and the bin file for the bios upgrade on your CD.

The only caveat, is that you will not be able to save the old BIOS onto the CD.
(You may be able to save it to the hard drive.)

Another option, would be to set up a small hard drive with DOS, and copy the flash and bios files onto it.
Install it as the primary master drive.
Boot up, and flash the BIOS.

Chas

by been there

Find out if IBM has a Bios update on the web then make a folder (or directory) on the C drive. Name it something like Bios upgrade. Download the driver. Then do an install (or setup)from your C drive. I would suggest that the trouble isn't worth theeffort or time unless there is a real problem with your desktop. You could get a friend to copy the bios from your hard drive or send it as an attachment and have them copy with a CD/RW for you.

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