Unable to upgrade Vostro 220s BIOS

Stop right now! You are obviously a novice and flashing the bios incorrectly is going to be a disaster for you.

Windows flashing is always very dangerous and not the prefered method. USB sticks are about as bad and dangerous.

If you really want to flash then use a usb floppy. Read the directions 10 times before you do it.  Make sure you know what you are doing!

Be careful, I bricked my Vastro 1000 with a bad BIOS flash.Don't force the issue. replacement motherboards are a fortune. Luckly I found aqstech.com they did the BIOS repair about $100 bucks.

Ok so you are not a novice. I still think you don't understand the basic potential problems of flashing bios. I have been flashing bios for over 18 years and still will not do a windows or usb flash. In the cases where I have had a failed bios flash I developed a blind flashing that has always recovered a bad bios flash.

PC makers went to Windows flashing to make it easier for less experienced people to flash their bios without having to use dos command line commands.

Does flashing in Windows work ....yes. Is it dangerous...yes. Why? Because when the operating system is running you have all sorts of processes competing for resources and RAM etc. One little hiccup and the flashing can fail.

Can USB flashing work...yes. But not all USB thumb drives are exactly equal in their quality and specifications.

I still suggest you try using a floppy drive. I hope you are prepared if you brick your PC.

Thanks for your concern, but I'm not a novice at all. I've been flashing and upgrading BIOSes for ages on a countless number of machines without a single fault...

If Windows flashing was dangerous, why would it be a recommended method on Dell website? Why would Foxconn distribute this kind of files as well? Also for the USB stick, I was again merely following the method given by Dell. (here)

I just wondered if people experienced this kind of problems too, since I never experienced this behaviour when attempting to flash a BIOS.

Regards

Thanks for that, it seems that this PC is quite picky when it comes to BIOS flashing...

Hi, I installed Windows 7 on my brand new Vostro 220s and experienced some difficulties in the process. The installation hangs at the end and I found on the internet that disconnecting all USB devices will solve the problem. While solving the problem, the root cause is still not resolved. That's why I tried a BIOS upgrade, by downloading the latest package available on Dell website. However, I've been unable to flash it, with either two methods: The Windows method won't work at all - upon executing the package, nothing will appear at all (?) The DOS method doesn't work as well. When executing the BIOS package from a bootable USB stick, the program will say 'launch the EXE first' after asking me whether I wanted to flash the BIOS or not. I honestly don't know how to proceed now.   Thanks for your advices! Cheers

I flashed my 220S by booting from a USB floppy and executing the flashing program from a USB stick. (I had to try two USB sticks to find one that worked.)