Middleton's BIOS WinPhlash issues

[H-Atkinson]

My T601's motherboard finally died, so I've gotten a new one to replace it with. It arrived on BIOS 2.25, which is bellow the 2.29 upper limit of Middletons. I'm having some issues flashing it though. Winphlash crashes whenever I do anything in the program (flash, backup current, or change advanced settings), always giving an error message of "WinPhlash User Interface has stopped working." If I try to use the packed-in WINUPTP program, I get the error "Driver Loading Utility failed. The Utility cannot proceed." The log creates if I try to flash the BIOS, and stops at the line "Reading from file 0 bytes of 0 bytes." I have not been able to get it to work with any of the following configurations:

-3 different drives, each with a different win7 ultimate install, one with all the drivers, one stripped down with just the graphics and trackpoint driver, and one with no drivers at all

-3 different motherboards (my new T61p motherboard, my T61p w/ middletons already on it, and an old T61 board that I have sitting around).

-3 revisions of WinPhlash 64 and the pack-in 32-bit version

Of these configs, all tried with each of the other variety, I have gotten none to progress past this error.

Anyone know wtf I can do at this point? I don't remember it being this much of a pain in the butt the last time I flashed a board.

[Cigarguy]

Flashing BIOS from Windows is buggy and risky. I've always flash directly, without Windows, and never had a problem in the past. It's pretty simple. Time to do some Googling.

[H-Atkinson]

I've seen the guides on doing that, but they all seem to need CDs, which I don't have on hand at the moment.

[Cigarguy]

CDs are cheap. Get a few. My Middleton CD is about 5 years old and is still going strong. Mind you over the past 2 years I have not used it much as I don't get many T61/X61T anymore.

[H-Atkinson]

I did a bit of digging, is there any reason this wont work: viewtopic.php?t=117042#p774150 ?

[Cigarguy]

Don't know as I've always upgraded to Middleton's using a CD. However I don't see why it can't work as a T61 is capable of booting from a USB. Not sure if all version of T61 BIOS will support booting from USB so check that first. Also I found that USB 3.0 stick will not work on older machines. For that reason I have a few USB 2.0 16 GB sticks.

[RealBlackStuff]

Rule #1: never update a BIOS from inside Windows.

I use Rufus all the time, incl. for Middleton's BIOS.
And I also have some external USB CD/DVD-drives and a few dozen empty CDs and DVDs.