Dell Lattitude CPx Laptop

Just got my hands on laptop, want to flash bios.
Question Can I flash Bios from External Floppy Drive via USB port?
Or is there a program I can use to do liveupdate Via Windows?

Dell Latitude CPx H500GT
Pentinum III 500mhz
Pheonix bios A05 4/11/00
Intel chipset 82440BX/ZX
128mb DRAM
IBM HDD 6gb
Toshiba CD-ROM 24x
Battery (Fried)
OS W2K PRO

No onboard floppy, dont really want to buy floppy drive, already need to buy battery, and adding memory.
Have found battery for aprox $65. Memory looking around (want to keep cost low)
If anyone has any links for upgrades post em. Would consider used parts, or even purchase used or broken laptop of same or compatible model.

Thanks
Major Geeks is: THE BEST!

 

I find it unlikely that a USB floppy would work. I don't think a BIOS that old would have that kind of USB support, if even they have that kind of support now.

Why not simply burn it to a bootable CD?

 

If I tryed external floppy (no harm either will work or not??)

I did'nt know you could update bios with bootable CD
Guess I'll try that way.

 

Well, you can always try the USB floppy. I'm just thinking that the BIOS will not check for bootable USB devices, but I could be very wrong. If it boots to the floppy, then I'd assume it would work just fine.

As for the Boot CD, you sure can do this. If you don't have a bootable CD that drops you to a DOS prompt or don't know how to make one do what you want, you can use the Ultimate Boot CD. Of course, then you'll want to burn the BIOS update files to a different CD (or a CD-RW if you really care about the $ .50).

 

No I dont care about the $.50
I did find some interesting info at
http://www.bay-wolf.com/bios.htm

#20 says cant update bios with dead battery ( guess buy battery first )
Bios has battery detection to safeguard power failure during bios upgrade.
#28 offers work around for dead battery, but aditional risks.

Had this link for few days should have read it.
#30 how to update with CD ( go figure!)

Got new plan buy battery first, then update via cd

Thank You da chicken for your Help
Have A Great Day!

 

Call www.salvageplus.com they sell floppy for $15.00 they sell dell laptop parts only very cheap