There are several old Gigabyte Motherboards like the GA-MA Series which uses their BIOS Included Q-Flash Utility for upgrading. This tool tries to access an attached USB Device in a file browser way to give you the choice on which file to flash. Most of the time, you won't be able to access your drive, as it will only be shown as "Floppy B". In truth, this means your USB drive is formated the wrong way: You should have only one partition on that stick, with size LESS than 128 MB and FAT as file system. Yeah, I figured that out the hard way ^^'. It will then be shown as "HDD 0-0" in Q-Flash and will provide your files for easy upgrading 🙂
Tag: BIOS
[Dell] BIOS Upgrade on a Dell Precision T1500
Hi there, I just got hands on an old Dell T1500 workstation. It is not the beefiest monster - but still kicking. And I got it for a bargain :). So, while I was refurbishing it, I wanted to do an BIOS upgrade, like usual. Turned out, Dell only offers a combined "DOS/WINDOWS" Upgrade File. I tried upgrading via an FreeDOS USB Stick, created with Rufus, however - it failed. Ok, lets try Windows: I installed Windows 8.1 x64 - and the tool "worked" - however, even after reboot, nothing had changed. Reset CMOS, Load Default in BIOS, nothing. Darn... Well.. All the Dell support stuff for this machine was around Windows 7-ish versions, so I thought "last chance" 😉 - and yes! It worked:
You need to install Windows 7 x64 and upgrade the Bios 2.0.2 to 2.4.0 via your Windows install. DOS seems to be not working - and Windows 8.1 won't work either. Also for good measure, load the default settings before upgrading and leave all other settings (especially the disabled fancy CPU stuff!) untouched.
Also, you'll see directly if it works: During the Win 7 upgrade, it disabled the USB mouse I was using and it took way longer. On Windows 8.1 - I could move the mouse as I wished. Oh, and one last thing: Administator rights, please ;).