Update the Dell PowerEdge R710 BIOS via USB

Step 1

First you need to acquire the BIOS update (currently 6.4) which can be done at Dell's site where you will find the BIOS update packages and many other useful drivers and utilities:
http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/19/driverdetails?driverid=4HKX2#

You want to click the "Download File" button next to the file format "Non-Packaged".

Step 2

The next step is to create a bootable USB flash drive that can run the "Non-Packaged" executable file that contains the BIOS update.  We like to utilize the tool known as Rufus to do so: http://rufus.akeo.ie/

Once you have downloaded Rufus, insert your USB flash drive and run Rufus.  Make sure your settings match the image below (your device, cluster size, and volume label may vary).  The important piece is to make sure you have "Quick Format" and "Create Bootable disk using FreeDos" selected.  Then click start.

Step 3

Now simply add your BIOS executable file that you downloaded from Dell's site to your flash drive directory.  You will see some files already on your flash drive such as "Autorun".  Leave these files alone!

Step 4

Here comes the easy part!  With the power to your Dell PowerEdge R710 server off, insert your USB flash drive into any available USB port.  Once inserted, power on the server and wait for the splash screen displaying the Dell logo (or for some systems a simple text screen will be displayed).  You will see several options for entering various menus by hitting a function key.  We want to hit the <F11> key for "BIOS Boot Manager.  Once the R710 goes through it's normal startup function (which can be lengthy), it will come to a menu that lists several options.  We want to select the option for "Hard Drive C:" and this will display a small pop out menu where we can select our USB device and hit ENTER.

Step 5

Upon hitting ENTER, we will see a C:\ prompt.  Welcome to Old School ladies and gentlemen.  What you are seeing is known as DOS Prompt.......  From here we can type in our executable files name to start the update.  To find our executable files name we can simply type "dir /w".  You will notice that the full file name may be shortened or truncated from "R710-60400C.exe" to something like "R710-604~C.exe" or something similar.  Just key in what you see there for the file name.  A nice blue screen will pop up with prompts.  Follow these simple prompts and you are set!  The system will reboot after the update.