How To Guide - Guide to make USB Pen Drive Bootable + Flash Bios + Memtest.

[loggan26]

How to Make a USB Pen Drive Bootable

The Guide is based on creating/getting a USB Pen Drive to boot on the DFI NF4 series mobo. The second part shows how to flash your bios from the pen drive.

Part 1

1. The easiest way to do this is with a floppy drive, if you don't have one, there is an alternative method at the bottom of the guide.
2. For XP users insert a blank floppy disc into the drive, open My Computer and right click on your floppy drive and choose "Format" from the popup.
3. Make sure the 'create a bootable system disk' option is checked. This will add the system files needed by the USB drive from the floppy. Click 'OK' to format the disk.



4. HP are constantly changing this utility, and as such the version you download might differ from the one in the guide HP Drive Key Boot Utility V2.1.8. Its intended obviously for HP usb drives but works fine with most other usb drives.
5. Plug in your USB drive and run the HP USB disk storage tool.
6. Ensure that the tool has found the correct drive in the "Device" box. Change the "File System" to "FAT". Check the "Create a DOS startup disk" option, and in the "using DOS system files located at:" window, enter "A:\" to point the program to your floppy disk or browse to it. Now click 'Start'. The program will create the necessary boot files on the USB drive.



7. Reboot your pc, when you see the post screen hit the Escape key, this will bring up a Boot Menu screen. Choose your USB drive from the list and hit Enter.



8. If all has went well you should have rebooted to the C:\ prompt. Congratulations you have just made a Bootable USB pen drive.

Alternative Method for users with no Floppy drives For users without a floppy drive download the XP Custom Boot disc HERE. This is a .exe file that contains all of the system files that you will need. Extract the files to a folder using Winimage etc. In Step 6. Point the HP USB utility to the folder containing the XP Custom Boot files.

Notes: Some USB pen drives do NOT work, mp3 type pen drives don't work or at least the ones i have tried do not, only a dedicated pen drive should be used. The Corsair Flash Voyager USB Pen Drive work perfect.


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Part 2


How to flash your bios from USB pen

WARNING!!!!! Do Not Flash a Bios While Overclocked, always set Stock Settings before Flashing any bios.

If you have followed the guide above and have a working bootable USB pen drive then you can easily use it for say, flashing your bios....here's how.

1. Download the correct bios for your motherboard from www.DFI.com
2. Next extract your downloaded DFI Bios to a folder using WinRAR or similar, Copy the xxxxxxx.BIN, the AUTOEXEC.BAT file and AWDFLASH.EXE utility to your new Bootable USB drive.
3. Right click the AUTOEXEC.BAT file and choose Edit, add the following lines to the AUTOEXEC.BAT file, or open the AUTOEXEC.BAT file with any text editor (Notepad) and Edit/Add the the lines below.

@echo off
cls
@ECHO OFF
C:\AWDFLASH xxxxxxx.BIN /cks/sn/py/cc/cd/cp/ld/qi/WB/ch
echo "The version of BIOS was inaccurate,"
echo "Please remove the floppy, download the right one and re-flash."
@ECHO OFF


4. Where xxxxxxx.BIN = the name of your bios.Bin file. The prompt needs changed to C:\ from A:\ as above.
5. Save the AUTOEXEC.BAT and Close it.
6. Make sure your Bootable USB drive is inserted and Reboot your Pc.
7. Hit Escape key when the post screen comes up to enter the Boot Menu Screen.
8. Select your Bootable USB pen drive from options listed and hit Enter. The bios should flash automatically. Follow instructions when its finished flashing.
9. Restart your Pc and enter the bios and Load Optimized Defaults. F10 to save settings and exit.

Thats it, if all went well you should have flashed your bios successfully from a Bootable USB pen drive. Congratulations.

Logan

[erico]

Loggan: excellent tutorial. Your explanation was clearer than a couple of articles I read elsewhere on the web.
This should be made a sticky. I have already pointed someone who asked how it is done right to this post..

[loggan26]

Originally Posted by erico

Loggan: excellent tutorial. Your explanation was clearer than a couple of articles I read elsewhere on the web.
This should be made a sticky. I have already pointed someone who asked how it is done right to this post..

Thanks erico, it works on my sticks as i tested it too make sure it worked,,,,the thing is it wont always work on everyones sticks as there is that many out there, still its easy and fast to do.......now if i could just get Tmod to get an iso that could be burned to a USB pen stick that would be real handy :wink:

Logan

[erico]

Loggan: I found that one can also place memtest on a bootable usb memory drive. Very handy for people with upgrade memory and booting problems.
The binary source is from the Memtest site. http://www.memtest.org/

cheers,
Eric

[loggan26]

Guide To Run Memtest86 Version 2.10 from Bootable Usb Pen (Flash) Drive.

******************

1. First you must make the Usb Pen drive Bootable, follow the guide above.

2. Next Download - Pre-Compiled EXE file for USB Key Version 2.10

3. Open the memtest86+-2.10.exe.zip, extract the mt210.exe file to the Root of your Bootable Usb pen drive.

4. Reboot making sure your PC boots to the Usb pen drive.

5. At the C:\ prompt type mt210 and press Enter key.



6. When Memtest has started, press C key for the Settings.



7. Press 1 for the Test Selection Screen.



8. Press 3 to Select which test you want to run.



9. Press 5 and Enter to Select Test #5.



10. Press 0 to Run test #5.



11. Run test #5, for 8-10 passes. If you get No Errors then you can continue to the next test, hit C key for Configuration Menu again.

12. Press 1 for the Test Selection Screen.

13. Press 3 to Select which test you want to run.

14. Press 8 and Enter to select Test #8.

15. Press 0 to run test #8.




16. Again run test #8 for 8-10 passes. If it returns No Errors run the complete set of default tests for 8-10 hours.

17. Memtest starts automatically running the default tests when its started initially.

18. Pressing the Esc key completely Exits Memtest.

My thanks to erico for pointing out this was possible.



Logan

[Tmod]

Note: I tried creating an AUTOEXEC.BAT to start memtest right away, it just freezes, i cant get it too work, i wonder if anyone else can?

Hmmm worked fine for me.

Tmod

[loggan26]

Originally Posted by Tmod

Hmmm worked fine for me.

Tmod

8) I think USb stick is fubar, RMA time, will see if it works when and if i get replacement.....

Logan

[AsAsIn8eR]

Man you server is down.I can't download the boot files.Can you give an other link?Thnx.

[loggan26]

Originally Posted by AsAsIn8eR

Man you server is down.I can't download the boot files.Can you give an other link?Thnx.

No,,, server not down,,,, mistype in link is all, fixed now.

Logan

[AsAsIn8eR]

Thank you.And helpfull guide!