Running WinPhlash from a bootable USB 2.0 drive.

Phoenix seriously has it in for x64 adopters. Not that any other BIOS manufacturers are any better, mind you. However I have had more problems with Phoenix than with all of the others combined.

 

My most recent problem was attempting to update my HP DV2000t to the F.39 BIOS. The system has a nasty habit of starting up while tucked away in a satchel or when lying closed on a desk. Per the release notes, F.39 was exactly what I needed to remedy this issue. Great! Download time!

 

At first I was thrilled. HP listed Vista x64 as a supported platform. Sure enough, on unzipping and running the package, the x64 version of WinPhlash kicked to life and began backing up my existing BIOS.

 

Then it promptly blue screened whilst administering a swift kick in the nuts to my hopes of an easy install.

 

A few more attempts failed. Safe Mode failed (the low level hardware access service is only available in standard mode). My search for a DOS flash program failed. Phlash16 does exist, but it can’t handle the newest BIOS images. What’s a large, hairy girl with a penis to do?

 

Well, after about four hours of research, I finally found my answer in the WinPE. I’ve used the PE before, but only off of optical disk. Which didn’t do me much good since WinPhlash makes a temp file and gets pretty pissed if it can’t. I was lucky enough to run into this article, however. It nicely outlined the steps to create a bootable USB 2.0 key drive, allowing one to run the 32bit version of WinPhlash.

 

What you will need:

1. A USB 2.0 thumbdrive with 512MB or greater capacity. Back up anything on the drive, because it WILL be formatted.

2. This image from Microsoft. (If it fails to download, go to http://download.microsoft.com and search for AIK).

3. The 32bit BIOS update for your machine, along with WinPhlash 32. The latter can be pulled from any number of updates on HP’s website, even if you’re not running an HP.

4. Daemon Tools if you don’t want to burn the IMG file to a disk.

5. A computer which supports booting to USB devices. If your PC doesn’t support this, I’m afraid you’re out of luck.

6. Rubbing a leprechaun on your balls couldn’t hurt things.

 

Step 1:

Download and install the AIK from Microsoft’s download link above. The installation will take up about 1GB of space, so feel free to uninstall it after you get your bootable drive.

 

Step 2:

Format the USB 2.0 thumbdrive. This is a bit tricky because the GUI for formatting doesn’t include the options to make a drive a system disk anymore. So here’s what you do:

 

Open a command prompt (Start > Run/Search > cmd)

Type the following commands (type the bold parts only, the rest is an explanation).

 

Diskpart

list disk  <–This will display all connected disks to your machine. Make a note of which one is your thumbdrive.

select disk # <–Where # is the number of your thumbdrive from the previous step.

clean

create partition primary

select partition 1

active

format fs=fat32

assign  <–This assigns a drive letter to your thumbdrive. Take a note of the letter assigned.

exit

 

At this point you will have a formatted thumb drive which is also marked as active, and can therefore hold a boot image.

 

Step 3:

You must now create a WinPE image on your system. This image will be copied to the thumbdrive in a later step.

Open the Windows PE Tools Command Prompt (Start > All Programs > Microsoft Windows AIK > Windows PE Tools Command Prompt).

From inside the prompt, run

copype.cmd x86 c:winpe_x86  <–This creates the file structure for the PE environment.

 

Step 4:

Copy your WinPhlash directory and BIOS image into the c:winpe_x86ISO directory. Make sure the image is in the same directory as winphlash.exe.

 

Step 5:

Copy the boot structure to your thumbdrive. From within the WPET command prompt, type:

xcopy c:winpe_x86iso*.* /s /e /f e: <–Replace e with the drive letter for your thumbdrive.

 

Step 6:

Reboot the machine and boot to the thumbdrive. For some machines, this will mean editing your BIOS to boot to removable storage first. For other machines, you should be able to enter a boot menu by pressing a key on boot. The WinPE will load and you will see a command prompt.

 

Step 7:

Change to the drive containing your WinPhlash folder. This drive letter may not be the same as the letter assigned while within Windows, so do a ‘dir’ after each change to verify your folder is there.

 

Step 8:

Run WinPhlash, followed by the name of the BIOS image you want to apply. Example:

winphlash 30B2F39.WPH

 

And that’s all there is to it.

 

It’s insane that this level of involvement is required to flash BIOS on a system in this day and age. Hopefully Phoenix will get their act together one of these days. But I doubt it.