Solved A Windows 7 BIOS loader for upgrades

[loninappleton]

I'm confused about the methods to upgrade or flash BIOS. I've seen Live Update available for MSI and I have two older MSI boards for AMD Athlon/ Phenom. Opening the Setup info I see where the option to backup the BIOS is listed, but AMI says in the description only for Fat32. This seems unreasonable.

Other lookups said that DOS or Windows installers are available and I've looked at the BIOS chip programmersavailable inexpensively as well.

What info does Sevenforums have available on this? On the chip programmer, youtube tutorials show the
need for .BIN file to be read by the program. Where is such a thing located?

How can I at least get the BIOS _backup_ done which is always recommeneded before any changes? Is backup offered at theLive Update process from the vendor? I simply don't want to go there pressing buttons before I get some background on what to do.

The MSI website is difficult to read in "gamer black" and I have continued problems tryingto get things with them.

 

[wither 2]

Hello-

I assume you have the E-41 version of the motherboard in your system specs.

if you go here and download the latest BIOS-

Support For 880GM-E41 | Motherboard - The world leader in motherboard design | MSI Global

it should be a .zip file. When you open it, there's a text file which explains how to flash the BIOS. I usually just run the .exe but, go by what the text file says.

 

[loninappleton]

Thanks for answering. I did see some of those upgrades through the gamer's black layout at MSI.

What has me stumped yet is the backup of the BIOS to USB removable drive in case
a BIOS upgrade bricks the system.

I can't supply a screen shot of the bios screen, but at the screen for flashing BIOS
my Sandisk is seen as an object but cannot be accessed. A sidenote clearly states it is ready
to do the job only in Fat32. The Sandisk is formated to NTFS for the content on it.

A friend suggested I make a USB formated to Fat32. I had not thought of that. And I have not done that setup of a USB thumb drive yet. I haven't got any to spare but should get a couple. In the older days of my Biostar board recall updating BIOS and drivers from disk. Is that still a possibility?

What about Live Update? I think edition 5 is for this MSI though Live Update new edition is 6.

There is an instruction for that with screen shots but I am wary of doing any of this
not knowing clearly what will happen.

 

[Megahertz07]

I don't recommend to do a BIOS update under Windows (live update), always under BIOS. Under Windows many things can go wrong.
Normally you download the BIOS file, save it to a Fat32 formatted flash disk, and under BIOS, update the BIOS with the file on the Fat32 formatted flash disk.
If you have the option to save the current BIOS to the Fat32 formatted flash disk, do it.

 

[loninappleton]

I'll mark this solved.


Thanks for the advice.

 

[loninappleton]

I've had to continue this thread. Above I've learned that a Fat32 USB pendrive is needed to back up the system bios using MSI M-Flash at the Setup screen.
I formatted my Sandisk peanut as Fat32 in Rufus. Inspecting the properties shows that
yes it is Fat32. But I'm hung up by the same file/folder not found error in M-Flash. I cannot see how the boot drive sequence would affect this.

The setup screen no longer gives the dialog message about not having FAT32 in red.
Does a folder need to be created on the bare USB drive?
I'm stumped again because M-Flash looks ready to go but can't find a target-- something.
Again, only Upgrades are covered in the tutorials I've seen. The info on backup is not found and I
don't really know how to experiment with finding an answer.

Can Rufus create the file folder namewhich is a system name starting with A in brackets.
If that A-file or folder is created to the Sandisk, will the backup complete?

I'm copying out what details I can since a screen shot won't help much and is not available. The error occurs on both my MSI working systems so it's something that is not explained adequately.

Top of M-Flash screen is set disabled. That is for Upgrade or retrieval from the USB

Lower portion of selection screen:

Save to selected device

the dialoge sees and displays my [USB:Sandisk] bracketed

Preloaded file name appears as [A7623AMSI] also bracketed
then
Save Extended Fle name [BAO] bracketed
then
[Press Enter]

At that point my Sandisk seen in the menu cannot be found. A red error box appears
and says:


Only supports particular file name [A7623AMSI]

What does [BAO] mean and have to do with anything? I will see what else I can find.

 

[loninappleton]

one followup today. I inspected one of my pdf manuals for MSI and there is no description of what's needed-- just enummeration of what you see in the Cell Menu.

 

[loninappleton]

I may be getting the hang of what the problem is. More reading on this done today. It seems that to do an upgrade
you do the procedure for the pen drive to Fat32. Get a newer BIOS , unzip, then remove the pen drive.

Reboot system with the pendrive reinstalled. Selelct M-flash at the cell menu and the process should
start, do upgrade, reboot all without additional key strokes.

Does this sound familiar? I'm piecing it together from MSI you tube, text file with the download and
a third party youtuber how to. It's as if there's a page missing from a manual.

With all that, I do not know if there is a direct method to do a backup with no network d/ling and such.

 

[johnhoh]

I did a search on "M-flash cannot find file" and got this link. It might be older than your board but worth a read.....

User guide: MSI HQ USB BIOS Flash Tool

 

[loninappleton]

Thanks for finding the right page. MSI info is like a needle in a haystack. After following your link
I read down to where another tool is needed. That is in an RAR file. Some other things too, not user friendly. RAR files from 1990. HP formatting tools (can that be different from Rufus?) Also that
RAR contains just an .exe file with no readme.

I'm looking to fix what I have and not use any Live Updates which other users warn against.

Will report any progress I make for those who may be reading.

 

[johnhoh]

Live updates do theoretically carry an extra risk because they happen live while windows is running, however doing things manually carries the risk of user error, especially if you are new to the process. Given that a bios live update always begins with a prompt for you to back up your existing bios, my opinion is that live update is a valid option for you. I've done maybe a hundred manual bios flashes and a hundred live update bios flashes and have yet to have a problem either way. my two cents...

 

[loninappleton]

From a previous personal project on privacy I though of a question. Should services be turned off or would it do any harm?


Also there was some routine that involved loading just the rescue disk to access Drive C to accomplish
a BIOS activity. Is there any experience with that?


Frankly I don't know how we got to this level of complication where mSI M-Flash has a simple
execute button which says the stored file will be transfered. But ti doesn't work and issued the
error you tracked down. It's true that current equipement users have a much more detailed
BIOS screen since the adjustments became popular.


One youtbe, the guy has a Peanut SanDisk like Mine, Same OS but brand new Ryzen B350 board.
He was moving files around and having a great time.



So what I have now from MSI is Redo the Sandisk with the HP format program
and then proceed with other options that are supposed 'fix' the pen drive to work right.

 

[Megahertz07]

You're doing it the hard way.

- Insert the Sandisk flash drive into a USB port, open Explorer, right click on the drive letter and choose Format.
On the format window choose Fat32 (that should be marked as default), Choose allocation size to 4096 (also default) and do a quick format.
Download the Zip BIOS file from MSI, unzip it to the root of the Sandisk flash drive.
- Follow the instructions from http://download.msi.com/archive/mnu_exe/E7623v2.1.zip page 3.26

 

[loninappleton]

Thanks for the tip on formatting through Windows. I'll give it a whirl. I don't know how it differs from using the HP tool but we're experimnting.


From above I'm still trying to get past the red error message in AMI BIOS.

 

[loninappleton]

I did reformat to FAT32 using Admin tools in Win7 with no change.


I mentioned that MSI webside is hard to deal with with RARs etc. I found a Unversal Bios Tool
from Major Geeks. That tells me it copied the BIOS file to the fresh FAT32 Sandisk.


I have to transfer the RAR Unpack over to the PC to do the job. Also Toms Hardware (which seems to be constantly at top of Google queue that the MSI Tool works well.


I've also gotten the User Guide for the MSI Flashtool.



The hard way is the only way on this job. Right now I have little confidence that I can complete the
task.

 

[loninappleton]

And I'm getting a lot of extra space on these replies and don't know how to turn off extra CR's

 

[loninappleton]

a brief update.
I seem to have made a bit of progress with MSI update tool. But that EXE file is loaded into Windows yet
and I haven't read the user guide.

Also checked the job done by the Major Geeks tool which I will link to. Indeed in the root
directory of the Sandisk American Megatrends BIOS 11.1 resides in there. The goal is to step through
all the BIOS updates so I would want to have 11.2 as the next step using the MSI tool.

 

[johnhoh]

And I'm getting a lot of extra space on these replies and don't know how to turn off extra CR's

I dont know why this happens but immediately after you post just hit edit then delete the extra lines.

 

[loninappleton]

I dont know why this happens but immediately after you post just hit edit then delete the extra lines.

This little problem I have resolved by not CR at end of line. It's just a habit I wasn't thinking about.
That's why, above I would go back in and delete them so it looked right.

 

[loninappleton]

I have found and am using the MSIHQ user group tool to do the BIOS flashing. Have gone through the tutorial and made a few attempts at the flash. What returns in the BIOS tool and in Win7 command to request BIOS version is always the same.

No errors are occurring as the program completes it's steps.

The last portion of the routine is to reset CMOS after shut down and unplug.

Then go in and fix the date. All ok.

But I have checked the date of the BIOS version against the MSI download section and from what I can see, no progress in BIOS upgrade.

I will make another attempt to ask some user questions at the forum MSIHQ for users. I also have a registration in for the board.

As the program was performing so well, Memtest 86 completed and so on I don't know why I cannot see confirmation of the upgrade. It's a lot of time spent on an old machine but I have another MSI that needs or should have an upgrade as well.