[jules]

Hiya

I bricked my A90 trying to update the bios about 18 months ago and gave up trying to sort it out but now I see its a common problem so maybe i can rescue it !

I bought a floppy created a disk followed the instructions when it first happened and seemed to okay other than the black screen that keeps telling me there is no OS.

When I connect using USB cd/DVD drive with the XP disk inserted I get same message, it starts for a few seconds then says no OS ... Over and over and over and over again!

If I boot the machine with the floppy follow the instructions fn and b keys etc it then sits and omits a beep 1 long 2 short I sat there for about an hour last night .... How long should I wait for it stop beeping ?

Would it do any harm to try the new USB flash way? Or isn't this the problem anymore?

I did notice when I booted from the floppy and went into bios that the date and time are correct which surprised me and that I am running Bios A05

I would love to get my mini working, can anyone help

I'm a total pleb so it would have to be a tech free idiots guide for me

Thanks

[holmes4]

Can you get into the BIOS? Make sure that the setting "Legacy USB" is on or enabled. If this is not enabled, then you can't boot from a USB CD/DVD drive.

[mpampis81]

Originally Posted by mikemoose

So I played with this and was successful twice in one night(hehe I wanted A06)

Looks like I couldn't get it to work unless I did the following.

1. Create the disk and make sure all three files are on it. Minidos, Flash, and bios file. I made sure it was formated fat and then ran the WINCRIS and then copied over the three files(Windows 7 64bit user)

2. Press and hold Fnc and B
3. Plug in power
4. Press power while holding FNC and B.
5. Release all three at the same time.

It will then go through a set of Beeps, if you get a bonk sound, it can't read bios file. Just replace it and try again

I was successful twice with this. I hope this helps.

Thanks for this solution

Thanks a lot. This worked for me!!!

[staljabro]

Hi, I'm having a lot of trouble with my mini 9. I plug the USB stick in, hold down fn + B, then plug the power lead in. I get a small flash on the two front led's, but I don't hear any beep or anything. I've tried turning the power on while holding the keys, but to no avail. I've tried all the USB ports and frankly, I'm stumped. Nothing shows up on the screen. The mini gives the proper amount of beeps when I remove the RAM, so I don't think its a mobo problem.

[WindsorMuscle]

After pulling my hair out on trying to get this Mini9 to recognize the thumb drive. The only way to get the Boot file onto the thumb drive along with the CrisDisk is to actually fool the computer into thinking you have a Floppy Drive. You need to download VFD virtual floppy drive for windows and the HP Drive Key Boot Utility. What this does is that VFD creates a virtual floppy drive with a blank floppy in drive a. You then run CrisDisk in DOS using the Windows Command Prompt. CrisDisk thinks there is a floppy drive in the computer so it creates a Boot Partition along with the needed files on the Virtual Floppy. Then with the HP Drive Key Boot Utility you tell the program to create a USB Thumb drive bootable with a Floppy. It takes the Virtual Floppy Drive A, and loads up the Bootable partition into the thumb drive once that's done you now have a fully bootable thumb drive. This works great for me after many hours trying to figure out I stumbled into this method. The links to get the files are here:

HP Thumb Drive Boot Utility: HP Drive Key Boot Utility - HP Business Support Center

VFD virtual Floppy Drive with GUI
Virtual Floppy for Windows

Remember to keep both programs running while you create the bootable drive.

Any questions feel free to ask.

[rrfranczak3]

Winsetupfromusb also works..get it here:

link:
http://www.datafilehost.com/download-a717212e.html

make sure 1st that you prep the USB drive..theres an option to format it (RMPrepUSB) on the 1st screen and make sure you check off the Win 7 then on the 2nd screen use the NTFS option on the left

1st screen


2nd screen


Good Luck....let me know if you need more help..........

Complete Instructions Here:
http://myeeeguides.wordpress.com/200...b-flash-drive/

And microsoft has a utility too..get it here:

link:
http://windows-7-usb-dvd-download-tool.en.softonic.com/

both work well.....

[cerebro27]

Thank you fbyte! Wow, work great! Thank you!

[Hajime042]

Hi, can somebody please direct me to how to fix my Vostro 1200? It was on A06 bios.
When I tried to upgrade it to A09 bios. Bios update failed due to power failure.

Now it's bricked. Please help.

[holmes4]

The Vostro 1200 isn't in the "Mini" line and therefore out of scope for this forum. I suggest you ask in the dell.com forums.

[loxx]

thumbs up for the tips.. its works to my netbook