[geeks] Dell T105 Server, CPU and RAM upgrade

nate at portents.com nate at portents.com
Thu Mar 19 15:48:08 CDT 2009


> Can't you cut a BIOS update floppy on another machine and boot off that?

Yes.  But here's what I'd recommend:

Get your hands on the HP USB formatting utility that turns just about any
USB flash memory device into a bootable flash device (I've currently
tested it on a wide range of PCs with a wide range of BIOSes and it
actually shows up as a "hard drive" device, which means it's even worked
great on systems that don't have explicit USB device booting).  It's a
Windows program.

Now I carry around a minimal DOS installation on a USB flash drive and
just load up whatever BIOS/firmware flashing utilities I need, and when I
boot up a system I go into the BIOS, go to the hard drive order, move the
USB flash drive up to the top, and have the system boot off that and I'm
good.

Sure beats floppy/USB floppy/burning CDs or the typical hit-or-miss USB
bootability of PC BIOSes.

- Nate



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