[img_assist|nid=859|title=|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=180|height=155]You've finally made the move to a Windows-free computer, you're enjoying your brand new Linux OS, no trojans/viruses, no slowdown, everything's perfect. Suddenly, you need to update the BIOS on your motherboard to support some new piece of hardware, but typically the motherboard vendor is offering only DOS based BIOS flash utilities. You panic! Fortunately, this problem is easy to solve...
Step 1: Download FreeDOS boot disk floppy image
FreeDOS, a free DOS-compatible operating system, is up to the challenge, no need for proprietary DOS versions. So, all you need is a bootable floppy disk image with FreeDOS kernel on it. We are fortunate that guys at FDOS site have prepared one suitable for us. Use the OEM Bootdisk version, the one with just kernel and command.com, because it leaves more free space on disk for the flash utility and new BIOS image. You can also find a local copy of this image attached at the end of this article. After you download the image, you need to decompress it. In other words:
wget http://www.fdos.org/bootdisks/autogen/FDOEM.144.gz
gunzip FDOEM.144.gz
Step 2: Copy your BIOS flash utility and new BIOS image to the mounted floppy disk image
Requirement for this step is that you have support for the vfat
and loop
file systems in the kernel. Or you can have those features compiled as modules. In the latter case, load the modules before the next step, like this.
modprobe vfat
modprobe loop
Consult /proc/fileystems
to see if you have the needed file systems supported. If you do, you should be able to "loop mount" the floppy disk image to some temporary path:
mkdir /tmp/floppy
mount -t vfat -o loop FDOEM.144 /tmp/floppy
If the mount went without errors, copy BIOS flash utility and new BIOS image to the mounted floppy disk image. You'll probably have to unzip the archive you downloaded from your motherboard vendor site, to get to those two files. Here's just an example for my motherboard (in your case, files will have different names, of course):
# unzip 775Dual-VSTA\(2.60\).zip
Archive: 775Dual-VSTA(2.60).zip
inflating: 75DVSTA2.60
inflating: ASRflash.exe
# cp 75DVSTA2.60 ASRflash.exe /tmp/floppy
Doublecheck that everything went OK, that those two files weren't too big for the floppy:
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/tmp/FDOEM.144
1424 990 434 70% /tmp/floppy
Finally, unmount the floppy disk image:
umount /tmp/floppy
Step 3: Burn a bootable CD which will emulate floppy device for us
Next step is to burn the floppy image to a CD/DVD-RW media, but in a way that it can be booted afterwards. First we need to make a bootable CD image, and then burn it. Notice that on some modern distributions, cdrecord
is renamed to wodim
, and mkisofs
to genisoimage
, but the parameters below should be the same.
mkisofs -o bootcd.iso -b FDOEM.144 FDOEM.144
cdrecord -v bootcd.iso
Step 4: Reboot, flash, reboot, enjoy your new BIOS
Finally reboot your machine, make sure that your CD drive is first in the boot sequence, and then run your BIOS upgrade procedure when the CD boots.
WARNING: Flashing motherboard BIOS is a dangerous activity that can render your motherboard inoperable! While the author of this article has successfully run this procedure many times, your mileage may vary. Be careful!
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Comments
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 2007-03-11 18:07
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Wrong Topic
This is not flashing from Linux it is flashing from DOS without a floppydrive. The difference is that it's FreeDOS not MSDOS. Totally missleading topic.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 2007-03-11 18:21
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Stop picking at semantics,
Stop picking at semantics, the topic was informative enough for me to understand what he was implying and direct me to his article. I found it informative and very helpful.
kamy (not verified)
Mon, 2007-03-12 12:26
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What's important is the fact
What's important is the fact that it helped me and I understood what to do. Not everybody is born is a native english speaker.
Thank you dearly (not verified)
Wed, 2007-09-05 09:36
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Thank you for this information.
This was something I hadn't thought about recently with updating one of my machines.It worked great! Thanks
Would anyone know what I should do about putting a BIOS update on a floppy that requires XP without using XP .Its for a HP 751n I only have access to Linux boxes.I dont know anyone with Windows anymore and if I asked I might get spit at.So,........?Anyone?
Or maybe a bunch or people could post irrelevant comments that are amusing to smirk at.Any idiots care to take me up on that offer possibly?
Anonymous (not verified)
Mon, 2007-12-10 21:53
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by Virtual machine ?
Is it possible to make the BIOS-update with a Virtual machine in Linux ?
Anonymous (not verified)
Tue, 2007-12-11 01:05
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Nope
It's a common misconception. All hardware in your virtual machine, including BIOS, is virtualized. So, you could only update your virtual BIOS that way, theoretically. But, I'm quite sure it's pointless and wouldn't work. :)
harmol (not verified)
Tue, 2009-07-28 17:23
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CD media is read-only, virtual guest environment is not.
Since the bios flash utility, needs to do a write of the saved "actual bios code", maybe a CD is not that suitable.
I was thinking of a host virtual engine on linux, running a dos guest operating system, of course in a small configuration for this purpose.
Did somebody tried to flash the bios using the http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/dosemu/dosemu-1.4.0-1.i386.rpm from http://dosemu.sourceforge.net?
Jason (not verified)
Thu, 2008-07-17 02:10
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I tried to do this last
I tried to do this last month : ) It fails for sure.It is better to update via floppy/cdrom/2nd hdd if bios supports that or you could try the author's way.
MobileTrend (not verified)
Tue, 2008-08-05 10:45
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I also tried it but it does
I also tried it but it does not work.
Anonymous (not verified)
Tue, 2008-08-05 21:26
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being specific = being helpful
Did a specific command not work? Did burning the iso not write to the CD? Did it brick your bios? Was it a FreeDOS compatibility issue with your brand of motherboard? Writing "doesn't work", doesn't help.
Note that this is a good article because it's specific and informative, even if it didn't work for *you*. The author did a good job explaining everything. Unlike your comment.
Thank you, Admin, for spending your time to write something that helps people even when they are ungrateful.
Anonymous (not verified)
Wed, 2010-03-10 05:48
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good for the technically aware hobbiest
Gents:
For the technical minority this BIOS-flashing discussion evidently is useful. It assumes proficiency & claims nothing else. Fair enough. However for the casual Linux lusr with **no interest or skill** in admin matters the explanations might just as well have been written in CHINESE. Surely it's better to light-one-candle ... just remember the infinite darkness.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 2007-03-11 20:05
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Total bullshit subject Title
I Agree!!!
Lame strategy to get digged!
What a moron!
Super Geek (not verified)
Mon, 2007-07-09 23:01
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anonymous cowards
Anonymous Cowards who blast this method should be shot.
this is a perfect resolution to people who aren't trapped in windows hell.
you can flash a motherboard from linux, without using your stupid windows tools, jerks.
he didn't do this to get dugg, he did it to help people.
tracyanne (not verified)
Sun, 2007-03-11 22:04
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Topic just fine
It helped me find what I needed.
Anonymous (not verified)
Mon, 2007-03-12 17:29
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The title is NOT misleading,
The title is NOT misleading, to a Linux user. If you are a Linux user, the title communicates to you exactly what you need to know.
The author didn't focus on the details of the procedure steps when formulating the well-chosen title.
Yeah, I guess if you run a FreeDOS system (who does?), then you would have a right to complain that the title is totally misleading!
What is BIOS? (not verified)
Tue, 2007-03-13 14:33
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Good enough for me
The title was misleading only to those who look for problems. I have Linux and I cannot flash my BIOS via conventional methods. The title of this article led me to it, and solved my problem. Any title that did not contain the term Linux would not have been found. You should be thanking the author, not crying about his title.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 2007-03-11 18:19
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Thank you very much! I
Thank you very much! I purchased an Asus a8js yesterday, wiped off the Vista and linux. One of the things I wanted to do was update the BIOS but was having a hard time figuring out how. Your timely article helped immensely!
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 2007-03-11 20:26
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very stupid
i wanna see how many morons bricks their machines...
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 2007-03-11 20:34
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Don't think so
I've just tested the procedure and updated my BIOS successfully - no problem at all. So, it actually works.
I've found elsewhere that the magic incantation to find your current BIOS version (without rebooting) is: dmidecode -s bios-version
Your comment is very childish, how old are you?
Anonymous (not verified)
Mon, 2007-03-12 03:14
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An Observation
"..morons bricks..."
Anybody that would use such language and terminology are themselves most likely a moron.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 2007-03-11 20:46
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Many times over the years
Many times over the years I've gone to freedos.org looking to d/l a boot disk but for some reason they don't provide one even though for most people bios flashing is the only reason they'd need the project. I didn't know about fdos.org. Great tutorial! You might want to add something about doing this from a usb drive since it's a waste to use a cd for this (and I don't have cdrw discs).
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 2007-03-11 21:12
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Or use GRUB to boot floppy disk image
Don't know about USB sticks, but you can use GRUB to boot a floppy disk image from the hard disk.
scavenger (not verified)
Sun, 2007-03-11 21:42
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It works
I don't own a floppy and haven't used Windows for several years. Thanks for the tutorial.
Harold (not verified)
Sun, 2007-03-11 22:58
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funciona
si funciona, aunque tenia miedo al principio, pero todo resultó muy bien
gracias
Anonymous (not verified)
Mon, 2007-03-12 00:27
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It's working but it's not a LINUX OS !!!!
A lot of people said yet this is a wrong way to say right things !!!
All the procedure is right and full functionally but it's not in LINUX OS but in FreeDos !!
Well Done surely !!!
Ciao !!!
Anonymous (not verified)
Tue, 2007-03-13 08:16
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If that's the case and you
If that's the case and you do have a floppy another way of doing this would be to use dosemu for creating boot floppy with bios update. A lot of vendors ship compressed floppy images as exe file (how to extract bios upgrade from there if not by using dosemu).
What I wanna know, would it be possible to create floppy image, insert boot menu to grub/lilo to boot from it and then flash bios? I mean, it can be done, but would it work?
Either way, there just isn't a way of upgrading bios without at least some kind of dos, whether it's M$ or some free version...
Rick Stockton (not verified)
Tue, 2007-03-13 23:00
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THANKS! You can also use the 2.88Mb version
If you're making a CD ISO and have no need to "limit yourself" to the standard formatted floppy size of 1.44Mb, you'll have room for bigger files and/or more tools if you use the 2.88 version of FDOEM:
http://www.fdos.org/bootdisks/autogen/FDSTD.288.gz
Rick Stockton (not verified)
Wed, 2007-03-14 00:15
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BUT: be sure to disable UMB stuff on the 2.88Mb image
The FDSTD.288.gz "standard" image has a bunch of irrelevant (for THIS purpose) utilities, and IMPORTANT! uses UMB for lots of stuff, which you MUST NOT DO when updating BIOS.
Replace the config.sys on the "standard" 2.88 image with the 3-liner from the "oem" 1.44 image:
?DOS=HIGH
?DEVICE=\FDOS\HIMEM.EXE /VERBOSE
?DEVICE=\FDOS\EMM386.EXE /VERBOSE
?DEVICE=\UMBPCI.SYS
FILES=20
BUFFERS=20
!rem SHELL=A:\COMMAND.COM /E:512 /MSG /P
SHELLHIGH=\COMMAND.COM /E:256 /P
should become just:
FILES=20
BUFFERS=20
SHELL=\COMMAND.COM /E:256 /P
fugative (not verified)
Fri, 2007-08-17 16:27
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flashing bios with freedos
I used the "flash bios - the ubuntu way" howto that was based based on this page (hope i got it the right way round!) with my shuttle xpc and it worked perfectly. tried to do the same with my HP zv5000 BUT the bios file (with installer) was over 2.5m. tried with the 2.88 freedos but still not big enough seems i might have to extract the bits from the .exe or just make a bootable rom, anyway still can't flash.
Oh, did the UMB bit as well
any ideas?
cheers
btw may have used a derivative of this page but thanks anyway (for the xpc, at least)
Anonymous (not verified)
Mon, 2007-09-03 14:59
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how to add ramdisk support?
how to enable ramdisk?
my flash program required writeable medium and i dont have fat/fat32 partition.
David (not verified)
Sat, 2007-03-24 21:57
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Title is perfect! easy to do & well commented
Thank you very much - useful and informative
I just updated a Dell Dimension 4300 bios using a CD, and I learned a bit more command line stuff. The article helped me - it worked perfectly!
I'd like info re: usb stick booting.
David
*I only needed to change paths and sudo some commands. I am a linux novice, and this was very helpful.
Anonymous (not verified)
Mon, 2007-03-26 02:46
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So FreeDOS is Linux?
So FreeDOS is Linux?
admin
Mon, 2007-03-26 17:59
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Of course it's not!
Like other people already noticed, why are some of you so picky about the correct wording? It's true that english is not my mother tongue, so it's slightly harder for me to compose completely correct sentences. I only tried to reflect my situation where I had linux (and only linux), had no floppy, and still wanted to flash my bios, nevertheless.
Yes, it's true that in the end you flash the BIOS from the FreeDOS, but why's that so important? Tell me, would people in my situation search Google for "freedos flash bios" or "linux flash bios floppy" instead? Also, if you look more closely, the whole procedure - except the very final step - happens at the linux prompt.
My sincere apologies if some of you were mislead thinking that you could flash your BIOS from a running Linux, I'm really sorry, this article is not about that. It should've been titled "How to flash motherboard BIOS when only OS you have installed is Linux (no DOS/Windows), and you don't even have floppy drive?", but I decided that it would be too long so I shortened it and made a mistake(?) along the way.
OK? Friends? ;)
Anonymous (not verified)
Mon, 2007-03-26 22:18
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I am not being picky about
I am not being picky about the correct words, I'm being picky about the things as they are.
Why it's that so important that in the end you flash the BIOS from FreeDOS? Because FreeDOS does all the work of flashing with the BIOS vendor flash utility, you didn't show us how to do it directly from linux.
If you read something like this "Build a High Performance Cluster with Windows (no UNIX/Linux)" and in the article it says download ClusterKnoppix or some other livecd cluster oriented distro. What will you think?
And english is not my mother tongue, as you may noticed.
DiscoBay (not verified)
Mon, 2007-04-16 07:18
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Thank you very much!
This was a great article! It was exactly what I needed. I had to upgrade an old machine that did not have Windoze or a floppy disk. The information you provided saved me a trip to the computer store to buy the floppy, and a trip to a friend's house to make a Windoze boot floppy.
Linux is truly a great system. It is amazing what you can do if you have the know-how!
Another great tool for my Linux toolbox. Thanks again.
DB
admin
Mon, 2007-04-16 15:00
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Thanks!
Hey, DiscoBay, thanks for your comment. I'm very happy that the article helped you to do your job. That's exactly what I tried to accomplish when I decided to write on the subject.
As Linux gets more popular, more and more people will need tricks like this. At least until we achieve the World Domination(tm) and thus get to compile our own BIOS-es from source. ;)
Keep up the good work!
Anonymous (not verified)
Sat, 2007-04-21 19:05
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Great mini-howto! I don't
Great mini-howto! I don't understand why others bash it -
while you are technically not flashing from linux, the target audience is those who run linux or some other unixlike os. I was just in this audience: no windows, no dos, no floppy drive. I roughly knew what to do, but did not know where to find freedos, rarely edited iso images, never burnt a bootable cdrom before, this article saved me a few hours of research and trial/error. Thanks very much!
Anonymous (not verified)
Sat, 2007-04-28 01:13
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But what do I do if I'm
But what do I do if I'm flashing to fix my keyboard? Can I automate this so that it runs the flash program on boot?
Anonymous (not verified)
Mon, 2007-07-23 16:07
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Hook up a keyboard that
Hook up a keyboard that works to do the flashing. Not that difficult of a problem.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sat, 2007-06-02 15:02
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If I update BIOS does it wipe my HDD too?
If I go ahead and update my laptop's BIOS, will I have to do an OS re-install too? (Ubuntu Linux, fyi).
admin
Sat, 2007-06-02 22:26
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BIOS update
No, installed OS is not affected with a BIOS update. Well, you theoretically could have some trouble after the BIOS update if some feature in the new BIOS is incompatible with your setup. But that is VERY unlikely, so IMHO you can effectively ignore that outcome.
OTOH, BIOS update is dangerous because of some other things. Namely, if anything goes wrong during the update process (you lose power or similar) you will finish with a broken motherboard, and thus your computer will become completely inoperable (even though the OS itself is not affected). Same thing would happened if you flashed the wrong BIOS file (I did that once, and yes, the next thing I was doing was searching for the new motherboard :)).
Finally, this whole procedure is dangerous because FreeDOS is used instead of the "official" DOS OS. While FreeDOS is highly compatible, there's still a slight possibility of a bug that would make lots of trouble if it triggers during the update. So, use at your own risk!
And one other thing, because replacement of a broken laptop motherboard is few times more expensive than replacement of a typical desktop motherboard, you should be even more worried when you plan to flash your laptop.
Dell (not verified)
Wed, 2007-06-27 21:18
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Thanks
This is a VERY useful utility. If it wasn't for this post, I wouldn't have known about it otherwise, thanks much for this.
Anonymous (not verified)
Tue, 2007-07-10 15:10
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I agree, this is a very very
I agree, this is a very very useful utility.
The title is not at all misleading - Most of the folks search for a way to update BIOS when they are running *nix.
til (not verified)
Tue, 2007-07-10 21:41
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And windows only firmware updates, e.g. from LG?
LG ships windows only firmware updates for their CD/DVD drives -
despite of selling an ATA drive with no mention of any requirement for M$ crap!
A case for a consumer class action?
Snecklifter (not verified)
Mon, 2007-07-16 17:23
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Lifesaver
Can't thank you enough for writing this page. Cheers!
Broken-Circle (not verified)
Sat, 2007-08-04 18:50
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My BIOS updater said it
My BIOS updater said it needed MS-DOS ;_;
walken (not verified)
Mon, 2007-09-24 08:03
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Thanks !
Thank you, this page is exactly what I needed. I knew about freedos but did not know how to make it into a bootable CD.
In the past I've booted freedos images using either syslinux (on USB sticks) or pxelinux (booting from network). In both cases this used 'memdisk', which is shipped with isolinux and provides a virtual floppy drives from the image contents. But on that one machine, the bios did not know how to boot from USB and the flash program was somehow incompatible with memdisk... I got stuck for a couple hours until I found your page.
Thanks !
Marco (not verified)
Mon, 2007-10-15 12:41
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Consider using LinuxBios
Consider replacing completely the bios with free software, and using LinuxBios. See http://www.linuxbios.org/.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sat, 2007-11-10 14:17
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excellent !!! thanks a
excellent !!!
thanks a lot
Dimitri
Greece
independent (not verified)
Sun, 2007-11-18 01:08
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I just want to add to the
I just want to add to the comments. A really clear (can't understate how valuable that is) how-to for helping people get out of the problem of bios flashing. Works really well. However, you may want to save a copy of "FDOEM.144" if you intent to do some more flashing.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 2007-12-09 06:56
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Can't Get past Step 2
Currently running Fedora 8. I performed step 1 and got the file unzipped but could not get the "modprobe" command to work in Step 2. Message shows "command not found" The ETC directory shows two relevant files: modprobe.d and modprobe.conf but modprobe isn't there. How can I run the modprobe command to load vfat and loop into my kernel? Your help is greatly appreciated.
John D.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 2007-12-09 16:28
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Try this: /sbin/modprobe
If it works, it means you just don't have
/sbin
in your$PATH
.Hidden (not verified)
Mon, 2008-08-18 03:24
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I think you are totally
I think you are totally right here
Spuffler (not verified)
Wed, 2009-04-01 18:30
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"SU -"?
"SU -"?
Spiffler (not verified)
Wed, 2009-04-01 19:41
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[~]% SU - zsh: command not
[~]% SU -
zsh: command not found: SU
[~]%
MZM (not verified)
Sun, 2007-12-09 11:22
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Instad of writting to CD,
Instad of writting to CD, image can also be written to USB flash drive with "dd if=FDOEM.144 of=/dev/MyUsbDevice". Set BIOS to boot from USB (USB-ZIP) and You will be able to backup Your existing BIOS to disk.
WARNING - dd will erase ALL data on target device! Double check of= parameter before running it!
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 2008-10-30 14:32
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perfect howto, and great hint
perfect howto, and great hint with the dd and usb-flash drive!
i have just upgraded my abit a-n78hd bios and am really lucky everything worked fine...
:):):)
Anonymous (not verified)
Fri, 2008-01-18 18:30
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U could just use WINE
U could just use WINE
Anonymous (not verified)
Wed, 2009-02-25 14:05
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You CANNOT just use wine (for
You CANNOT just use wine (for now, at least): wine can't access to protected bios area.
Pádraig Brady (not verified)
Wed, 2008-02-20 12:02
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flashing BIOS directly from linux
I've written notes on flashing the BIOS directly from linux.
This has the large advantage of being able to update the BIOS remotely,
and not mess around with boot media.
pilby (not verified)
Sat, 2009-05-02 00:36
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nice. flashrom worked
nice.
flashrom worked beautifully. i had a similar deal. computers on mountaintops that i needed to flash remotely.
Anonymous (not verified)
Fri, 2008-04-11 18:33
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how do you do this???? it doesnt say?
Doublecheck that everything went OK, that those two files weren't too big for the floppy:
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/tmp/FDOEM.144
1424 990 434 70% /tmp/floppy
how do we get that information? what command do we need?
admin
Fri, 2008-04-11 19:56
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df /tmp/floppy is the magic
df /tmp/floppy
is the magic incantation. Check that it isn't at 100%. Also be sure that you haven't got any errors in the process (disk full or similar).This is important because you don't want flashing process to stop because your bios update is not fully written on the floppy. Most flash programs nowadays are clever to avoid that mistake, but you can never be too much cautious.
Every time I decide to update my BIOS, first thing I do is try to remember how much my MOBO cost, then check if I have enough money on hand to go buy another MOBO right away if something goes wrong. ;)
lanzen (not verified)
Mon, 2008-04-21 14:59
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Wow, thank you. This was
Wow, thank you. This was really helpful! I didn't really fancy having to install windows to upgrade.
I have followed your instructions and all went well.
Thank you again.
Mats (not verified)
Wed, 2008-05-07 14:39
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Two questions
1. My files doesn't fit within 1440kB. Can I make the image larger?
2. Is it possible to make a bootable usb by do a "dd if=bootcd.iso of=/dev/sdb"? (/dev/sdb is my usb stick)
Thanks in advance
Mats
Anonymous (not verified)
Wed, 2008-05-07 15:58
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You can try with 2880kb,
You can try with 2880kb, depending on your DVD device and/or BIOS, it just might work.
Mats (not verified)
Thu, 2008-05-08 20:06
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Thanks, but 2880k is also
Thanks, but 2880k is also too small. :(
Anonymous (not verified)
Tue, 2008-09-16 17:23
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Use the swap partition
You can temporarily format your swap partition as FAT, place the "big" files there and boot with a plain FreeDOS floppy/DVD...
azca (not verified)
Sat, 2009-01-03 07:00
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The following is a brief
The following is a brief outline of how I created a 4MB CD boot image to update the bios on a motherboard I have been considering buying.
I do not have this motherboard, but I have tested the bootable CD up to the point of actually flashing the bios.
FWIW, my computer runs PATA / IDE HDs and optical drives. Not SATA.
Adjust accordingly to your distro, hardware, etc.
I'm human, and make typos on occasion. So double check your input.
(Also, CD-RWs are great to practice on :D)
This is a compilation of various web pages, including the following:
http://www.tuxrocks.com/Projects/CDProject/
http://members.chello.at/bobby100/ILpart1.htm
http://afs.caspur.it/afs/italia/project/bigbox/e4/x86_64/latest/isolinux/isolinux.cfg
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-19428.html
And this one, of course :)
1. Create and cd to ~/bootcd
2. Download and gunzip FDOEM.144.gz
3. Create ~/bootcd/floppy
4. Loop mount FDOEM.144 and copy the loop mounted files to ~/bootcd/floppy
# mount -o loop -t vfat FDOEM.144 /mnt/floppy
$ cp -r /mnt/floppy/* ~/bootcd/floppy/
5. Unmount FDOEM.144
6. Create empty 4MB image: (Or whatever size you need.)
$ dd if=/dev/zero of=disk.img bs=1M seek=4 count=0
7. Create a DOS file system on the empty 4MB image
$ mkdosfs disk.img
8. Insert the FDOEM.144 boot sector into the 4MB disk image
(copy the 446 byte boot code from the 1.44MB floppy image.)
$ dd if=FDOEM.144 of=disk.img bs=1 count=446 seek=62 skip=62 conv=notrunc
9. Loop mount the 4MB image:
# mount -o loop -t vfat disk.img /mnt/floppy
10. Copy files from ~/cdboot/floppy to /mnt/floppy
# cp ~/cdboot/floppy/* /mnt/floppy/
11. Copy required BIOS files to /mnt/floppy
# cp DP0507C.BIO /mnt/floppy
# cp IFLASH.EXE /mnt/floppy
12. Unmount the 4MB image
13. You may now need to install the 'SYSLINUX' package for your distro, or download the tarball from:
http://syslinux.zytor.com/wiki/index.php/Download
I used the Ubuntu-8.04.1 package, and it seemed to work OK for this purpose.
14. Copy isolinux.bin to ~/bootcd
$ cp /usr/lib/syslinux/isolinux.bin ~/bootcd/
15. Copy memdisk to ~/bootcd
$ cp /usr/lib/syslinux/memdisk ~/bootcd/
16. Create ~/bootcd/bootmsg.txt
$ nano bootmsg.txt
$ cat bootmsg.txt
BIOS Update
17. Create ~/bootcd/isolinux.cfg
$ nano isolinux.cfg
$ cat isolinux.cfg
default Bios
prompt 1
timeout 1800
display bootmsg.txt
label Bios
kernel memdisk
append initrd=disk.img floppy c=10 h=64 s=32
18. You may now delete or move FDOEM.144 and ~/cdboot/floppy
$ cd ~/cdboot
$ rm FDOEM.144
$ rm -r floppy
19. Your ~/bootcd directory listing should now look something like this:
$ ls -al ~/bootcd
total 7728
drwxr-xr-x 2 username username 4096 2009-01-01 21:25 .
drwxr-xr-x 23 username username 4096 2009-01-01 21:21 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 username username 12 2009-01-01 21:19 bootmsg.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 username username 4194304 2009-01-01 21:20 disk.img
-rw-r--r-- 1 username username 14061 2009-01-01 21:25 isolinux.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 username username 143 2009-01-01 21:20 isolinux.cfg
-rw-r--r-- 1 username username 20068 2009-01-01 21:21 memdisk
$
20. Create ISO image:
$ cd ~/bootcd
$ genisoimage -o cdproject.iso -b isolinux.bin -c boot.cat -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table .
21. Burn ~/bootcd/cdproject.iso
(Remember to adjust these options to your distro and hardware accordingly.)
$ wodim -v -dao -eject speed=2 driveropts=burnfree dev=/dev/scd1 -data cdproject.iso
22. Boot from CD and test.
End of proceedure.
HTH
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 2009-01-25 21:21
Permalink
has anyone tried this?
i am having the problem that the upgrade doesn't fit on the small boot image. has anyone tried the method above? does it work?
paul (not verified)
Sat, 2010-12-04 09:26
Permalink
Procedure submitted by azca
Azca's approach worked perfectly for me. I have been trying to upgrade the BIOS in an old P3 Dell Latitude CPx for about a week now. I lost the floppy module so am forced to use the CD.
I have tried a variety of methods and had no success with any of them. Part of the trouble is my own ignorance in that I'm just not as experienced with GNU/Linux as most of the people that participate in discussions like this. So I probably missed a detail or did something wrong.
At any rate, I was able to follow Azca's instructions without any trouble and had total success upgrading the Dell Latitude's BIOS.
Outstanding job, Azca! Thank you very much.
azca (not verified)
Sat, 2010-12-04 16:14
Permalink
You're welcome, Paul. Glad it
You're welcome, Paul. Glad it worked for you. :)
ACER_9410_Owner (not verified)
Tue, 2010-12-28 18:21
Permalink
The steps by azca worked
The steps by azca worked perfectly for me! Thanks!
Steps performed December 28 2010, using Ubuntu 10.04 with the 'local' FDOEM144 image provided on this page.
Updated an Acer 9410 to 1.24 BIOS, from http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/notebook/as_9410.html
(FWIW the ACER BIOS image was too large to fit the FDOEM144 image per original article's steps.)
Bill (not verified)
Sat, 2011-11-19 00:51
Permalink
The following is a brief ... only works for 1.44MB and 2.88MB
Hey there,
Like you, I was searching for how to flash my 4MB image onto my motherboard without DOS or Windows.
I tried the solution offered by Azca. It didn't work. Why?
I wanted to create a greater than 2.88MB boot CD. The key is this ... Azca's solution uses "memdisk" to boot the CD. "Memdisk" only understands 1.44MB and 2.88MB floppy images.
If you want a greater than 2.88MB boot CD, you need to make a Hard Disk ISO and somehow get that onto a CD and make the CD boot. The alternative is create a bootable USB key with appropriate space and boot structure and files.
If I knew the answer I would have posted it here. I am still searching ... When I find the answer, I will come back.
Just so you know ...
Bill
Anonymous (not verified)
Sat, 2008-05-10 06:27
Permalink
Thanks!
You rock!
This procedure saved me a ton of time. Fantastic!
chameleon (not verified)
Wed, 2008-09-17 16:28
Permalink
abit fatality fp-ing success!
This worked perfectly to upgrade my Abit Fatality FP-ING SLI motherboard from bios 12 to bios 16.
This has now given me 45nm. process technology support and I am now running the Intel Core 2 Duo Wolfdale processor at 2.66GHz.
I have a second Abit motherboard to upgrade soon...
Great work-thanks!
rusl (not verified)
Mon, 2008-10-27 09:44
Permalink
turn off high memory!
I was having a heck of a time with this. I even gave up about a year ago. Then I came back to it today and finally figured it out.
This is an excellent set of instructions. It all works. My only thing to add - the hitch that held me back - was this:
You have to --in freeDOS-- say NO to all the expanded memory options, 386, all that stuff! This is very important because if you say Yes (which is the default) then you will get a protected mode error and get nowhere with the BIOS flashing.
I think this is a really important point to make and perhaps should even be noted in the main article. A lot of people like me who aren't familiar with the command line and nuances of DOS (or freeDOS) memory management are not going to know that you MUST say NO to the default options presented when you boot this freeDOS image. I am quite relieved now that I've finally figured it out. But I was really banging my head against a wall and giving up hope until I finally decided to look into the "protected mode" error I kept getting.
Thanks for the article! For the record, I agree the title is a little deceiving because the guide requires leaving Linux to flash the BIOS. However, its a very useful guide and there probably isn't any realistic way to flash the BIOS from within Linux (I was really looking hard and tried many other ways that didn't work before I figured out the protected mode problem) so it's a great way to do it with free software and 95% Linux.
Julian67 (not verified)
Tue, 2008-10-28 20:32
Permalink
very good guide
This is a very good guide, thank you. I successfully upgraded the BIOS on my new nVidia motherboard today hoping to resolve some ACPI issues. Your guide is perfect, my bootable CD worked just like a floppy, with the exception that it is read only so that the old BIOS could not be saved to it. The motherboard's ACPI implementation is still non-compliant and annoying :-) But I have a small collection of dos programs intended to run from floppy and a few of them are still useful so this is very useful experience and knowledge.
André Aziz (not verified)
Fri, 2008-10-31 15:54
Permalink
It works! I upgrated my Asus
It works! I upgrated my Asus P5B Deluxe without problems!
Thanks!
Mirko (not verified)
Tue, 2008-11-11 02:37
Permalink
it works
I updated the BIOS on my Dell Latitude D630.
Smajd (not verified)
Mon, 2008-11-17 16:54
Permalink
I didn't use this tutorial -
I didn't use this tutorial - and do it the same way - but if i found it before, it will take me much less time - it's good how-to. I've upgraded bios on my old ASUS P6000 this way - and it works!
Guido (not verified)
Tue, 2008-12-16 00:15
Permalink
Success with Abit iL-90MV
Brought my Abit iL-90MV from BIOS 1.1 to BIOS 1.4, following your instructions to the letter. Everything went without incident - absolutely foolproof.
Thank you very much!
Rick (not verified)
Fri, 2009-01-02 12:09
Permalink
Thanks!
I upgraded the memory on my Dell laptop (Inspiron 5100) but needed to flash a new BIOS version for that. Dell, of course, only provides a MSDOS/Windows exe. Didn't think it safe to do it under Wine. This did the trick. Thanks!
Eric (not verified)
Fri, 2009-01-30 00:49
Permalink
fdos.org FDOEM.144 is outdated, from 2007
Hi, the FDOEM.144.gz file you mention is from 2007, better try something newer, like the FreeDOS diskette downloads on rugxulo.googlepages.com ... Or of course try to make the fdos.org people update the file there.
sixerjman (not verified)
Thu, 2009-04-16 07:16
Permalink
The FDOEM.144 image DOES NOT BOOT
Twice I've created CD's following the original instructions to the letter and the CD won't boot, goes right to the GRUB menu.
I had more success with the more detailed instructions which included SYSLINUX/ISOLINUX on a 2.88 Meg image, but ran into
an error loading boot.img .
sixerjman (not verified)
Thu, 2009-04-16 09:29
Permalink
To be clear, for some reason
To be clear, for some reason the iso image is larger than 1.44 Meg, even though the contents of the file system with FreeDOS and the BIOS update is about 635K, and I can see it in the image (FDOEM.144).
ll /tmp/floppy
total 645
7 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 7168 1969-12-31 19:00 ./
0 drwxrwxrwt 13 root root 300 2009-04-16 03:07 ../
1 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 67 2004-02-22 09:16 autoexec.bat*
516 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 528384 2009-04-16 00:43 BDLCX_14.exe*
65 -r-xr-xr-x 1 root root 66090 2003-12-10 06:49 command.com*
1 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 52 2004-02-22 09:17 config.sys*
45 -r-xr-xr-x 1 root root 45562 2005-07-18 19:58 kernel.sys*
2 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1486 2004-02-22 11:50 readme*
10 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 9221 2005-07-18 19:58 sys.com*
root@dell566:/opt/BIOS upgrade # du /tmp/floppy
645 /tmp/floppy
root@dell566:/opt/BIOS upgrade # du -h /tmp/floppy
645K /tmp/floppy
/BIOS upgrade # ll
total 3888
4 drwxr-xr-x 3 dbrazziel dbrazziel 4096 2009-04-16 00:52 ./
4 drwxr-xr-x 3 dbrazziel adm 4096 2009-04-16 00:04 ../
520 -rw-r--r-- 1 dbrazziel dbrazziel 528384 2009-04-16 00:04 BDLCX_14.exe
1796 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1835008 2009-04-16 00:52 bootcd.iso
1444 -rw-r--r-- 1 dbrazziel dbrazziel 1474560 2005-07-18 19:53 FDOEM.144
pirx (not verified)
Thu, 2009-04-30 20:57
Permalink
One more step: clear the cmos
I followed the instructions and everything went perfect: Flash and reboot, linux came right up. Then I turned off the power to install the 1TB disk I needed the upgrade for. 5 beeps when I turned the power back on. (OMG I killed it).
I found that on this computer (tyan k8w) I had to clear the cmos by unplugging the power supply from the mother board and changing a jumper setting for 10 seconds. conclusion: don't panic.
Xeper (not verified)
Sat, 2009-08-01 17:36
Permalink
Thank you
Thank you for cutting to the chase with this article and making my bios flash process a seamless one. For my manufacturer, I also had to install wine to get the files out of the self-extracting EXE, but other than that I was able to follow your guide to the letter... this couldn't be easier. Thanks a million!
docetrago (not verified)
Sun, 2009-08-16 17:43
Permalink
ASUS P4S8X-MX update successful.
Very good job.
Keep on rockin' !
Thanks.
Darlan Moreira (not verified)
Sun, 2009-08-23 23:06
Permalink
It has worked!
I did all the steps. I have a pen-driver so the DOS called it C:. using that it was possible to backup the old ROM.
Steve (not verified)
Tue, 2009-08-25 06:57
Permalink
no floppy drive
Hi his is almost what I need but I don't have a FDD is there a way to write this to a flash drive.
Thanks
Steve
Anonymous (not verified)
Tue, 2009-10-20 23:28
Permalink
FDD image on USB stick
I just did that using dd to write the floppy image to the stick. In my case:
sudo dd if=FDOEM.144 of=/dev/sdc
The stick booted fine.
.b.
Azyx (not verified)
Fri, 2012-01-27 07:19
Permalink
Thanx. Worked fine for me too :)
By the way..I used FAT16 on my 100MB USB-stick, because it was needed for BIOS update with Asus eeePC 900. That netbook have a flash-utility, so there you only need to lay the BIOS image directly on the USB-stick, but you may not us FAT32.
/Cheers
believer (not verified)
Sat, 2009-08-29 14:43
Permalink
It worked!
It worked! I was able to upgrade the BIOS of my Dell D630 from A15 to A16 (using D630_A16.EXE) from under Ubuntu 9.04. Thank you for your detailed instructions!
Uwe Hermann (not verified)
Sat, 2009-09-12 11:11
Permalink
Flashrom, a Linux utility for flashing your BIOS (or NIC, or...)
Hi,
please consider trying/using flashrom for flashing a BIOS next time. This is a native, open-source Linux and BSD command line utility, no need to mess with floppies or CD-ROM drives, or DOS... You can even flash your BIOS via ssh whenever you like. Packages are available for Debian, Ubuntu, Mandriva, Fedora, and some more distros.
Additionally, flashrom also supports a growing number of "external flashers", such as NICs (3Com right now, more will follow), NVIDIA graphics cards (patch is on the mailing list), SATA controller cards, and many more.
The full list of supported devices is available from:
http://www.coreboot.org/Flashrom#Supported_devices
Uwe.
admin
Sat, 2009-09-12 13:03
Permalink
Uwe, thank you for your
Uwe, thank you for your contribution.
While flashrom is definitely the future, I think the simple cookbook I provided will still be useful for many years to come. There are two reasons for that. First one is that there's so much bios devices out there that it is close to impossible to support well all of them. Last time I looked at flashrom neither my desktop nor my laptop had support for them. And they're both not so young, especially the laptop. The second reason is even more important IMHO. When you try some unfinished software product, it may segfault, it may corrupt some of your files, it may even crash the OS. But if flashrom fails, well, you'll immediately brick your hardware (motherboard), make it unusable and that costs $$$. So if you make a mistake, you'll have to pay for it, real money (and time).
In that regard, some of the bravest and luckiest (with support for their flash chips already built in flashrom) will have great fun and success using flashrom, but for the others who are either more cautious or don't have a choice really, this page remains the only solution. Looking at the other comments, I'm so glad it helped so much people and worked flawlessly for them.
admin
Sat, 2009-09-12 13:13
Permalink
Additionaly, this flashrom
Additionaly, this flashrom error shows how picky flashrom is even about the kernel it runs on, so the procedure is actually more complicated when using flashrom (I'd need to recompile my kernel first, and I don't like that):
flashrom v0.9.1-r706
Error accessing low megabyte, 0x100000 bytes at 0x00000000
/dev/mem mmap failed: Invalid argument
In Linux this error can be caused by the CONFIG_NONPROMISC_DEVMEM (<2.6.27),
CONFIG_STRICT_DEVMEM (>=2.6.27) and CONFIG_X86_PAT kernel options.
Please check if either is enabled in your kernel before reporting a failure.
You can override CONFIG_X86_PAT at boot with the nopat kernel parameter but
disabling the other option unfortunately requires a kernel recompile. Sorry!
Carl-Daniel Hai... (not verified)
Tue, 2010-02-02 12:25
Permalink
Should work now
The Linux kernel has a memory validation bug which caused these aborts only on some machines. It had nothing to do with DEVMEM or PAT, and it didn't happen on any developer machines even if they had the same mainboards as people who got the error.
Latest flashrom (revision 889 and later) has a workaround and our testers confirm it works fine for them. No kernel recompile necessary. Besides that, there's always the option of using one of the Linux+flashrom Live CDs.
Anonymous (not verified)
Fri, 2010-02-26 02:47
Permalink
flashrom failure "cost"
What is the "cost" of a failed BIOS_flash using flashrom ? Is the mobo nominally "bricked" ?
Anonymous (not verified)
Wed, 2009-09-23 19:12
Permalink
Flash Bios under Linux w/Floppy Drive HP Pavilion ze5400 Laptop
I realize this thread is devoted to flashing the bios on machines w/o floppy drive but I've seen a lot of confusing stuff out there on the topic of flashing a bios under Linux and wanted to say that its an easy process with a floppy.
I downloaded HP's bios flash utility to my HD on a Windows PC, created the flash utility floppy, booted the HP Pavilion ze5400 Laptop with the flash utility floppy and it flashed the bios beautifully.
Robert Voje (not verified)
Thu, 2009-10-29 22:16
Permalink
AND no Windows/DOS
This thread is also about not having Windows/Dos.
It's not all of us who have access to a Windows machine, especially late at night, when (at least I) usually does these kind of things.. ;)
scott (not verified)
Sat, 2009-09-26 18:35
Permalink
out of space cant start over?
I created a boot image and it works.
Now I want to create a separate different boot image and it keeps on telling me I am out of space.
How do you clear out the old to make room for the new??
cp: writing `/tmp/floppy/ep43ds3l.bin': No space left on device
Anonymous (not verified)
Sat, 2009-09-26 19:36
Permalink
Well, either delete files
Well, either delete files you've added, and put new ones instead, or just start from scratch.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sat, 2009-11-21 22:56
Permalink
Try UNetbootin using these
Try UNetbootin using these instructions.
sm1234 (not verified)
Sat, 2009-12-19 19:54
Permalink
hp laptop bios upgrade
I have sp42153.exe to flash my hp notebook PC. I have only ubuntu. I tried unetbootin to have bootable freedos. But it hangs at initdisk. Also I dont know what files to run from sp42153.exe even if I become successful in booting freedos. Can somebody help me? Thx
admin
Sat, 2009-12-19 20:30
Permalink
You don't mention what
You don't mention what happens when you follow the instructions in the original article?
But, even before that, check that your exe file is a DOS flash program, and not Windows based! Because if it's the latter, I'm afraid it can't possibly work and you'll have to either find a DOS based program for your notebook, or install Windows and flash from Windows.
sm1234 (not verified)
Sat, 2009-12-19 20:48
Permalink
I didnt complete the steps
I didnt complete the steps mentioned in the original article as I was getting errors in some of the steps. I know the .exe is winflash.exe file. I need to scratch it and install windows vista again as I didn't do dual booting earlier. I thought I can skip that process. So it appears there is no easy way to apply winflash based bios upgrades from linux?
Thx
admin
Sat, 2009-12-19 20:54
Permalink
I'm afraid not, winflash
I'm afraid not, winflash based bios update can only be run from Windows. Sorry...
If your netbook is still under support, you could contact HP and ask for help, I guess. It would be interesting to see their reaction.
I remember having trouble with HP notebook, contacting support, but the guy over there didn't have a clue how to help me. Few days later bloody thing completely died. Fried motherboard they said, and eventually local support replaced it in 7 days. Happy end, I guess. :)
James (not verified)
Sun, 2010-04-11 17:55
Permalink
A winflash utility (*.exe)
A winflash utility (*.exe) can usually be extracted like a zip file(in linux).
usually there is the flash (*.fd file) in the mix
You can use a various dos based flash programs to with that file.
hope that helps.
Henk (not verified)
Wed, 2009-12-30 14:34
Permalink
flashrom
I just tried flashrom on an MSI motherboard, it is just great!
Here is a typical session, back up your current bios:
# flashrom -r current_rom.img
flashrom v0.9.1-r710
No coreboot table found.
Found chipset "Intel ICH7M", enabling flash write... OK.
This chipset supports the following protocols: SPI.
Calibrating delay loop... OK.
Found chip "Macronix MX25L4005" (512 KB, SPI) at physical address 0xfff80000.
Reading flash... done.
You now have 512 KB image of the rom. (BTW the exact same image is suplied by MSI with the DOS based firmware update tools.)
So you once you are confident that the firmware images suplied by your vendor are 1-1 copy of the rom you could use flashrom.
Which is probably safer than these DOS based firmware tools...
Cheers.
Maverick (not verified)
Mon, 2010-02-01 05:42
Permalink
You need to use a Windows Based PC
You need to get on a Windows based PC and extract the major files with-in the self extractor. Then you should find HPQRUN.EXE in there along with the other files. Copy those on to your disk and run it in your initdisk.
Anonymous (not verified)
Wed, 2010-02-03 01:42
Permalink
flashROM & friends
I'm sure the (various) posters intension's are well-meaning, but to a **non-expert** the various sets of flashing-instructions are mostly babble.
Given the risk & extreme costs of mobo-BRICKING, only a bullet-proof bios-flashing scheme is of value to the vast majority of those who could profit from a bios update.
How bullet-proof? Say ... a standalone native Ubuntu-app displaying a single GUI-button labeled . Hellesbelles if UBUNTU OS can query-hardware on install and auto-configure the entire OS to function with that hardware it seems plausible < to this longtime, but casual Ubuntu lusr > for firmware BIOS to be treated the same way.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sat, 2010-02-13 17:40
Permalink
Bulletproof updates are impossible
If power fails during a write or erase, you need a second BIOS chip (DualBIOS etc.) or some other hardware-based recovery technology.
Usually people update their BIOS for fun and they deliberately risk their boards, only to complain if something goes wrong.
However, if an update is made available to fix/supply a feature that was promised on the box, many jurisdictions give you the option of either asking the vendor to do the upgrade for you free of cost (after all, the vendor sold a feature that needed fixing) or updating yourself and having the vendor recover for free if it goes wrong.
But "extreme cost"? Come on. Worst case is you send the mainboard to a specialized flash recovery shop and they repair it for $20 or less. If you live in a poor country, you can probably get that service for $5.
Anonymous (not verified)
Fri, 2010-02-26 02:42
Permalink
"valuing" failure
I'm afraid you do NOT value bricked_board failure correctly. I start with functioning hardware/software ... and end with nothing. That's a (current) loss of complete system value. What may happen in the obscure future has no-current-value. It's that TOTAL LOSS that inhibits me from flashing. Almost everything vs nothing. Can't get more risky then that!
It's a profound and telling weakness in Linux-as-usrland OS that such a risk has NOT been systematically addressed ... as has OS installation, hardware recognition and update.
Anonymous (not verified)
Fri, 2010-03-12 15:24
Permalink
The same problem exists on DOS/Windows/Linux/MacOSX/...
The risk of failing flash is not a Linux problem. No flashing software out there can guarantee a working update (regardless of the operating system you use).
Without recovery features in hardware, you can complain as long as you want, but some updates are still going to brick your mainboard. If you want to be 100% sure you don't get a brick, buy a mainboard with two BIOS chips. It's that simple.
You wrote:
"It's a profound and telling weakness in Linux-as-usrland OS"
Well, it is a profound and telling weakness of most mainboards out there. The web is filled with reports about bricked machines, and it happens with all operating systems and all flashing programs.
You wrote:
"It's that TOTAL LOSS that inhibits me from flashing."
Good. If you can't deal with the risk of flashing, just don't flash and let someone else (repair center maybe) perform the BIOS update instead.
I will never understand why people want to update their BIOS if they can't handle the risk. Would you change the settings of the ABS (anti-lock braking system) in your car and accept the risk that braking may fail (total loss) due to your changes? Probably not. Would you drill your own teeth instead of going to a dentist? Probably not. Still, people insist that they should be allowed to do anything with their computers and that it should always work perfectly with no risks.
BIOS update tools are there to make it easier for people to reflash their BIOS, but these tools can't make it 100% safe.
Anonymous (not verified)
Tue, 2010-12-28 13:14
Permalink
Simple.... Virus infected
Simple....
Virus infected BIOS....Yes..it does exist. I have one.
lamapper (not verified)
Sun, 2010-10-31 09:28
Permalink
Buy from Linux vendors ONLY (ZaReason is the reason)
If you purchase your hardware from vendors that know and do Linux, you will have no problems at all. ZaReason, my favorite and System 76 are two of the more famous Linux Vendors.
Hardware purchased from a Linux vendor will still run Windows, however hardware designed to only work well with Windows will sometimes not run Linux at all, or only after many modifications.
There are even lawsuits with BIOS vendors that catered to Windows to the detriment of Linux. Life isn't fair is it.
We can stop rewarding the players that rig their hardware to cause us difficulties. Say a 7 year, do not purchase after any event where their hardware was jury rigged to work less well with Linux. And reset the clock at each new occurrence.
If a company knew that if they screwed you over, you would not purchase their hardware, any of their hardware for a minimum of 7 years of good history playing nice with Linux, perhaps they would not attempt the BS in the first place.
Its not Linux's fault that you went to a big box store or manufacturer (Dell, Compaq) that only pays lip service to Linux but in reality only truly supports Windows.
Buy from a Linux vendor and avoid the hassles. ZaReason is my favorite, I have used them and will use them for future purchases...great hardware that always works with any distro of Linux. And I can even run Windows if I want too, but I do not.
Kunthar (not verified)
Sun, 2010-02-07 23:31
Permalink
Check those after writing BIOS
1. If machine trying to start and stop in short intervals, unplug the power, open the case, take out the battery, wait a little bit, then put it in again and start. This way, you can see the newly installed BIOS.
2. Gigabyte owners check owners manual. They have ezflash facility. Download BIOS update files, write them to the vfat formatted flash disk and shutdown. Select at the beginning to enter ezflash. Point flash and you're good to go.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sat, 2010-03-06 19:43
Permalink
question
I need help!!
This worked great for me up until the very end. After generating the ISO image (using genisoimage) and writing it to disk I tried booting and it didn't work (error: command.com not found). After rebooting in Linux I looked at the top directory of the CD and found two files: boot.cat and fdoem.144
I was under the impression that the files should all show up in the top directory the way they did when fdoem.144 was mounted to /tmp/floppy... is that right?
I tried loop mounting bootcd.iso to /tmp/floppy the same way, and found the same two files.
I'm using Ununtu 8.10. My motherboard is almost 10 years old (Asus A7V133), so that may be the issue.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
George (not verified)
Sun, 2010-03-21 01:04
Permalink
Success
Worked like charm!
Thanks a million!
Francisco (not verified)
Fri, 2010-03-26 22:51
Permalink
Problem with version?
I tried this, but when I run the software to update te BIOS, it says that "it cannot be run in MS-DOS mode"....
Mi PC is a MSI Wind U120 netbook, the utility for updating the BIOS comes from the vendor itself.
Any ideas?
Thanks in advance.
Cheers!
admin
Fri, 2010-03-26 23:45
Permalink
Your bios utility is Windows
Your bios utility is Windows based, so it can't be used in the procedure described in the article.
Also mine utili... (not verified)
Wed, 2010-06-30 18:25
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Also mine utility.. goddamn
So what can I do now ??
admin
Wed, 2010-06-30 21:39
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I guess you're out of luck.
I guess you're out of luck. You'll probably need to install Windows, at least temporarily. Or try to find some live bootable windows DVD, I hope something like that does exist?
And don't forget to complain to your MOBO manufacturer... ;)
jemfleming (not verified)
Thu, 2011-08-04 12:57
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"..cannot be run in MS-DOS mode.."
This happened to me (Archive Manager in Debian6 couldn't open the .exe file from Gigabyte).. however 7zip did it, no problem:
cbtgc@debian6freepc:~/Desktop/test$ 7z e motherboard_bios_ga-8i915pduo2_ff.exe
7-Zip 9.04 beta Copyright (c) 1999-2009 Igor Pavlov 2009-05-30
p7zip Version 9.04 (locale=en_GB.UTF-8,Utf16=on,HugeFiles=on,1 CPU)
Processing archive: motherboard_bios_ga-8i915pduo2_ff.exe
Extracting autoexec.bat
Extracting 8i9pdu2.ff
Extracting FLASH893.EXE
Everything is Ok
Files: 3
Size: 570920
Compressed: 575504
cbtgc@debian6freepc:~/Desktop/test$
Thereafter all worked fine & dandy from a FreeDOS floppy :-D
much better now
Troy Bison (not verified)
Mon, 2010-04-05 01:00
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good instructions
Very clear instructions: worked fine - updating BIOS for Albatron KI690-AM2 (from 1.00e to 1.07) the BIOS now runs my AMD BE-2400 at the correct frequency now! Many thanks, would've taken ages to figure all this out.
Matt (not verified)
Fri, 2010-04-09 05:12
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Worked Like a Charm
Just updated the BIOS on an ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA (http://tinyurl.com/create.php) with their latest (http://tinyurl.com/ylladky) using my Ubuntu 9.04 machine to create the bootable update CD. Thanks!
Roadrunner (not verified)
Fri, 2010-04-16 20:38
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No love here
The main problem is that vendors are still paying blind homage to Windows.
It's like religious zealots or something. Why are we stuck in this sorry f'ing state?
back to this topic....
Here's what I've tried:
Did the cd burn thing (what a waste of plastic)
the cd booted but said "could not find command interpreter" or close
(sorry it was late last night and I was f'ing fed up)
I looked in config.sys (damn, remember this file?) and there is a line
SHELL=\COMMAND.COM (other shite options here)
Also tried dd if=FDOEM.144 of=/dev/sdc1
Nothing worked, I think my box needs a BIOS update for this to work, oh wait, I am trying to update the BIOS. Gee thanks vendors.
I wish a rich person would start a real OpenHardware initiative, I would buy that stuff. Open video cards, open mobos, open north/southbridge, etc., etc., etc.
It's the year Twenty-Ten and we are stalled.
Anonymous (not verified)
Wed, 2010-05-19 11:20
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open hardware
by computer from china, bios is open source, impossible to install windows. Richard Stallman own one of them.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sat, 2011-01-15 00:33
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i love the longson
The longson is awesome, mips based ... so no natuarrly incompatable with windows ^^
Anonymous (not verified)
Wed, 2010-06-09 04:10
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WILL ALL THESE WORK with
WILL ALL THESE WORK with 64-bit Linux?
Anonymous (not verified)
Fri, 2010-08-27 16:38
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Did the cd burn thing (what a
Did the cd burn thing (what a waste of plastic)
use a rewriteable disk?
Anonymous (not verified)
Fri, 2010-08-27 16:53
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Absolutely! Otherwise it's
Absolutely! Otherwise it's really a waste. Not terribly expensive, though. :)
Basil (not verified)
Mon, 2010-09-20 04:32
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Its not just Windows
It it was a matter of Windows but there is no standard Linux, is it RPM or DEB, Redhat or Ubuntu or any of the 100+ Distros. I am a Ubuntu user, OpenSUSE and Fedora its differant in all cases for almost everything. Yes a Ubuntu user can run RPM and a Ubuntu/Debian as well but OPENSuse doesn't read DEB's all that well they have other way to package softeware like YUM. So we need 'TRUE' standardization. Its getting better. Its easier and cheaper to stick with Windows as there is just one Windows. Yes compatibility is a disaster for hardware from XP to Vista, but from XP to 7 and Vista to 7 not so much. When and if Linux becomes standardized we might see more support out of the box for Windows. Just look at the VIRUS industry with Linux/OS-X/BSD and of UNIX there are few virus 5 at the last count not much of a market here, Windows has over 60,000 with a trillion dollar industry most is sadly self induced. I still believe Linux is the best OS out there by far, however due to good advertising and billions in sales Windows will alway stay the #1 OS for home users it easy for all. I do consider sometimes to crack open my piggy bank and buy a iMac you get UNIX stability and great tech support, there is a reason why so many are choosing to slowly to move to Apple, but I can't afford Apples over inflated prices. For example the iBook has the almost exact parts as a Dell Inspiron 1525/26 You can install OS-X on it I know I have done it. Yet I paid $599.99 a similar equiped iBook $1299.00 kind of a bit of a differance. I got my Dell pre-installed with Ubuntu and now in Canada they don't support it.
Bgs (not verified)
Tue, 2010-10-12 17:01
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linux flash
The kernel is the same across distros but for minor patches usually related to security or GUI. Vendors could give a statically linked binary (32 and 64 bit) for the flash. Problem solved :)
No need to make installable software, keep an eye on libraries and dependencies, versions, etc.
Another approach: Distribute a mini linux image that does the flash that you can boot from a usb stick. This way flahing is independent from you choice of host OS.
acculeer (not verified)
Thu, 2010-07-22 16:45
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Thank you ++
It works perfect.. ASustek board need MS for Biosupdate, but i use Linux only ..;-)
Anonymous (not verified)
Wed, 2010-09-15 15:12
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dead link
hey there,
this link for the bootimage is dead.
http://www.fdos.org/bootdisks/autogen/FDOEM.144.gz
is there another one ?
admin
Wed, 2010-09-15 15:51
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There's a copy of FDOEM.144
There's a copy of FDOEM.144 attached to the article, at the very end, before the comments.
Anonymous (not verified)
Wed, 2010-09-15 20:57
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ahh thanks :)
ahh thanks :)
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 2010-10-10 05:07
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wow... now I don't have to
wow...
now I don't have to keep an old machine with a floppy lying around with windows on it, just to make bios update floppies...
thanks
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 2010-10-24 05:39
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People with old computers
People with old computers might want to verify that the CD-RW disks that they have on hand will function with the PC that needs its BIOS flashed. I discovered that a 'TORiSAN CD-ROM CDR_U200 1.12' that I speculate was supplied with my Gateway SOLO 5150 laptop when it was new was incapable of reading a Plasmon 4X CD-RW disk. (I did not have other manufacturers’ CD-RW disks to try with the 5150.)
I had used my desktop PC with a Sony DVD burner to burn a copy of Puppy Linux v5.1.1 to the Plasmon CD-RW disk. Later, I used the Sony to burn this same Puppy image file to a CD-R disk that the 5150 successfully boots.
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 2011-03-17 04:35
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Thank you so much!!!
I've tried MANY other options without success! It's so made for Windows and floppy, both of which I don't and won't use.
Motherboard: KM4M-L (MS-6734)
Chipset: VIA VT8235
Tresa Titman (not verified)
Mon, 2011-05-02 09:01
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used this to flash my
I used this to flash my foxconn motherboard and every time I would get to the part in the award bios flasher it would say, press y to program or n to cancel and I would hit y and it would just sit there?????I did it over and over, made new disks, to no avail, then I thought I recalled reading along time ago about some motherboards having a jumper that is used to clear the cmos ( i believe this is what holds the bios settings) and that if this jumper is in place the bios is unwritable. well, i removed the jumper temporarily and sure enough, my new bios was flashed on the motherboard and I am now not getting the apic errors in my syslog anymore about the cpu error 40 something or other. anyway.
atrsoftgmbh (not verified)
Sun, 2011-07-03 17:15
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My litte tyan 8230 experiance, part 1
found nothing to work for this one.
neither the ways that was suggested here nor flashrom project.
the board has no ide, only usb to flash from.
tyan support suggested to put m$ system files from windows 98 or 95 on a usb stick and their flash package unzipped and then flash from usb.... i think i should route this to m$ for their next process against mis-usage of proprietary software..
after studying this article i tried but the bios size is 4 mb so the whole thing didnt fit into the freedos floppy disk....
after playing with bootable syslinux i found that this does not work for this board - seems to have a problem to flash if sata is in use... boots but flash does freeze - after all system was still intact (my lord, i lost a kilo or so after finding the thing was stuck in a flash ...)
so i restored an old pentium 3 box.
added a spare ide disk.
live cd fdbase.iso from freedos was running, so i created a 2GB partition (less than 530 MB the usb based flash also does not work: legacy emulation of tyan 8230 handles the thing as a floppy and the boot fails on the tyan - so much for emulations).
fat 16 format from freedos for the 2 GB partition (i hate to use fat32 - its even incompatible to other windoses..).
than installation of a minimum freedos system, shutdown the old p3 box, remove the disk.
after this i putted the disk into my tyan box with a ide-sata bridge (oh, well, even this is today needed some times).
there is no ide on the board, so no boot of freedos directly for the tyan 8230 (the sata cd drives are not recognised, boot fails when it comes to the cd rom drivers).
fdisk the partition to see for its size in blocks (2mio +) and then copied the partition to my disk
dd count=4193000 bs=512 if=/dev/sdb of=/opt/tmp/fd.img # size of blocks in fdisk * 2 + 100 reserve and so on gave count)
then copied to the usb stick (corsair flash voyager 8GB, nice working for linux and now for usb3 even better... ).
dd bs=512 if=/opt/tmp/fd.img of=/dev/sdc # no need to give a count here
mounted the stick, then copied the tyan package.
cp -r tyan /mnt/2 && sync # after this the thing was still normally looking in loop mount ...
after reboot the usb stick was doing its job.
from the boot menu i had to choose the option only high mem - all others stuck.
the flash worked. no interferance by sata or so.
its a shame, but i found no way to install from live cd directly to the usb - seems there is no way to use the sata drives even in emulation mode as a ide for freedos.
I now try to see if its possible to get a freedos image with vmware player up and running and to use this as a replacement for the pentium 3 pc.
if there is anyone interested: i will put the zipped freedos image without the tyan stuff on the web side next week, so you can download it (6MB in gzip format) and then put your own package on this.
for the usb stick any bootable with 4 GB should do the job.
Bart (not verified)
Thu, 2011-08-04 02:19
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Boot image with cdrom drivers
If you are lucky to get hold of a boot image with cdrom drivers, use this as a boot.img with k3b and add your flash stuff as data to the cd-rw burn it as an multisession cd so you can add more flashware to the cd as needed. Once booted the cd data can be executed from the cd as your "C: drive"
marty (not verified)
Sun, 2011-08-07 16:38
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BIOS update
Thanks for this very useful tutorial. I managed to update the BIOS on my ASUS K8V Deluxe motherboard. For some reason, the FreeDOS image from the fdos.org website does not contain command.com. I used the one from your website and that works fine. Keep up the good work!
admin
Sun, 2011-08-07 16:46
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I'm glad that you've found
I'm glad that you've found the tutorial useful.
Also, it seems it was clever to copy the floppy image in case it misteriously dissapears from the original site. Or stops working. ;)
Tnx for the comment, marty.
Dovregubben (not verified)
Fri, 2011-08-19 02:33
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No removable drive at all, no problem
It is possible to perform this procedure without creating an iso image and burning a CD. Simply put memdisk and the boot image on your hard drive (you can put it anywhere, but /boot is the preferred location), and then point your bootloader to it. In Grub 2, the commands (at the Grub command line) would be:
root (hd0,msdos1)
# (or whatever your boot partition is)
linux16 /boot/memdisk
# (or wherever you put it)
initrd16 /boot/FDOEM.144
boot
You can also boot an iso image by adding iso as an argument to memdisk. In Grub Legacy it would be:
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/memdisk iso
initrd /boot FDOEM.144
boot
I'm not familiar enough with lilo, isolinux, etc. to pull those off the top of my head, but you can figure it out.
Kodeart (not verified)
Tue, 2011-08-23 12:11
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Use flashrom
...or you can use flashrom with awesome hot-flashing in two steps:
1. always backup (if something went wrong you'll need it)
$ flashrom -r current.bin
2. and update
$ flashrom -w latest.bin
3. Reboot
No voodoo required (except otherwise).
nick (not verified)
Mon, 2011-11-21 22:05
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RE: Use flashrom
Yes, flashrom is a very nice piece of software. Use it frequently myself.
But, it is not recommended for laptops and has a limited, but growing MOBO support list.
HW Support for latest version 0.9.4 (-r1394)
If you do a apt-get install on ie Debian squeeze you get an old version, even with backports.
For latest HW support, found in this list, you need to install by ie svn co svn://flashrom.org/flashrom/trunk flashrom
They have complete instructions on the download page - and excellent IRC support.
dersuanius (not verified)
Sat, 2012-06-02 22:50
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Memory range to write with flashrom
How it detects which memory ranges should it write the ROM BIOS code?
I read that it may change from some computers to others, and the size of them too.
In example, one has 512Kb, another maybe 1 Mb ...
In my case, BIOS.ROM has 1.1Mb length.
How do I know and specify this with flashrom?
Thanks
Tom (not verified)
Thu, 2011-08-25 04:38
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2.88 floppy image works better
Thanks for the great instructions. The DOS BIOS for my Acer laptop is 2.5 MB and fits better with the 2.88 Normal Bootdisk from http://www.fdos.org/bootdisks/ with the DOS folder removed to make more room. I then made a bootable CD using K3b / New Data Project / Edit Boot Images.
Anonymous (not verified)
Wed, 2011-08-31 02:09
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get bellow error on mkisofs
mkisofs -o bootcd.iso -b FDOEM.144 FDOEM.144
tried executing as root also
I: -input-charset not specified, using utf-8 (detected in locale settings)
Size of boot image is 0 sectors -> genisoimage: Error - boot image 'FDOEM.144' has not an allowable size.
Files inside tmp/floppy
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 51657 2011-08-30 18:26 AFUDOS.exe
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 67 2004-02-22 09:16 AUTOEXEC.BAT
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 34816 2011-08-30 19:03 bootcd.iso
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 85050 2011-08-20 10:21 COMMAND.COM
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 52 2004-02-22 09:17 CONFIG.SYS
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 0 2011-08-30 18:25 FDOEM.144
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 45449 2011-08-20 10:19 KERNEL.SYS
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1048576 2011-08-30 18:25 M3N78-EM-ASUS-0901.ROM
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1486 2004-02-22 11:50 README
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 11530 2011-08-20 10:19 sys.com
Any help!!
Anonymous (not verified)
Wed, 2011-08-31 18:39
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never mind figured it out
never mind figured it out
SenecaTuX (not verified)
Sat, 2012-06-02 21:47
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Iniciar grabador EEPROM BIOS desde USB
Personalmente, prefiero emplear una unidad USB con ayuda de la estupenda aplicación UNetBootIn, que permite tomar una imagen ISO grabarla en un pendrive USB, haciéndolo autoarrancable.
Por lo demás, está bastante bien, aún pese a la pésima traducción.
Añadir que con dmidecode ( como administrador, claro), podemos ver el modelo exacto de la BIOS, fabricante, número de serie, etc.
Buena obra de bricolage casero.
¡ Y sin abrir el ordenador ni tener que sacar el chip de su zócalo y emplear una grabadora de EPROM!
Como avanzan los tiempos..
Duncs (not verified)
Tue, 2011-09-20 10:57
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Thanks
Thank you very much for posting this - had been trying to work out best way to do it on my system for a few days and your post made sense and worked first time.
Duncs
Anonymous (not verified)
Sat, 2011-10-01 15:01
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Missing the's for the win!
Sorry to say that, but your command of English is atrocious. Can't you at least use a basic grammar and spell checker? All these mistakes are painful to the eyes.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 2011-12-18 22:38
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Your Grammar.
There is no apostrophe in a plural. You failed.
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 2015-01-22 22:30
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actually plurals in English
actually plurals in English can have apostrophes... for example: "I have many CD's"... and so on.
No apostrophes ... (not verified)
Thu, 2015-06-25 12:27
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No apostrophes in plurals
From Oxford Dictionaries Online:
When you are forming the plural of an initialism, you do not need to use an apostrophe, for example:
MPs: e.g. MPs voted against the bill.
CDs: e.g. I bought some new CDs today.
Source: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/initialisms
Anonymous (not verified)
Mon, 2011-10-10 09:43
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How do I fix this error...? #
How do I fix this error...?
# cp FLASHIT.EXE KM2000FR.120 /tmp/floppy
# cp: writing `/tmp/floppy/KM2000FR.120': No space left on device
Will fixing this allow me to create .iso?
admin
Mon, 2011-10-10 09:55
Permalink
If the files can fit on a
If the files can fit on a 2.88MB floppy, try to find FreeDOS image of that size on their pages and use that.
Dale Strickland... (not verified)
Sat, 2013-01-05 15:38
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Thank you
This article is ageing well. I've just used it to update the BIOS on a Dell Precision M6300 running OpenSUSE. After a memory upgrade from 2G to 8G, it wouldn't get past the BIOS POST. I put the old memory back and followed your instructions. Sorted. New memory now working nicely.
Thank you very much. You have saved me a lot of messing about.
simpleton (not verified)
Fri, 2013-03-01 00:47
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simple
ok, i struggled with this update bios with linux issue LONG ENOUGH. after two days, i had to do it my own way, or go buy and install windows (um, NO!). so, you need TWO usb flash disks. install USB IMAGE WRITER from software center (ubuntu, sabayon, fedora) its already install in mint 14. rename FDOEM.144 to FDOEM.144.iso, and use usb image writer to write it to usb flash disk. it will make a usb disk with a 1.44mb partition, and if you can't fit your 4mb bios update on there, like i couldn't. format the second USB FLASH DRIVE to fat16 (0x06) using disks. and just copy your MSDOS BIOS UPDATE files directly to the second flash drive. now make sure both are plugged in and reboot. press F12 or whatever at splash screen to select boot device. select one of the flash drives, if it doesn't boot to freeDOS command prompt, push power button and try again selecting the other flash drive to boot from, it WILL be one of them, and there is only two. next, when at command prompt. make sure your at the freeDOS flash drive by entering "dir" which you should see the 5 files in freeDOS, autoexec.bat, command.com, etc... ok now you go searching for the other drive. enter "B:" and hit enter if it asks you to insert a floppy drive (usb is already inserted) and then enter "dir" in that drive, it might still be the freeDOS drive, if its not the same files you saw earlier, and its not a thousand files+folders (freeDOS shouldn't be able to read your linux partitions), and if it has a file like "bios.bat" then you're probably on the second flash drive which you put your bios update files on. my second flash drive was "C:" and so thats what i typed when i got to the freeDOS prompt upon booting. so, once you get to your second flash drive with all the bios update files in it, and without modifying their directories (shouldn't be any) type "bios" which executes the "bios.bat" file which then executes the bios update. my flashed in less than a minute. done.
simpleton (not verified)
Fri, 2013-03-01 00:50
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additional information
but the second flash drive could be D:, E:, F:, G:, H:, etc... make sure to enter "dir" after accessing any of them, to make sure you're on the second flash drive you put your msdos based bios update files one.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 2013-07-28 20:32
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This article worked
This article worked flawlessly with Ubuntu 12.04. Had to sudo a couple of the commands, but no other changes needed. Installed A17 BIOS to a Dell Latitude D630. Thanks.
Andrew Ensley (not verified)
Mon, 2013-07-29 00:40
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This just saved my life
6 years later, and it worked perfectly. Thank you!
SC1420 user (not verified)
Sat, 2013-09-28 23:05
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Worked! Thank you
Upgraded a DELL SC1420 from BIOS version A03 to A04. First I tried the Linux bin, which I couldn't get to work, no matter the different suggestions on the web. Then I tried this way using the .exe and it just did the job. Perfect. Thank you.
admiralshlork (not verified)
Wed, 2014-02-12 06:50
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lolwut
adding sudo to # cp 75DVSTA2.60 ASRflash.exe /tmp/floppy didn't work. removed it and it worked. .-.
admiralshlork (not verified)
Wed, 2014-02-12 06:51
Permalink
using my own filename ofc
using my own filename ofc
Stephen Angelico (not verified)
Sun, 2014-11-09 05:23
Permalink
If you have a # prompt, you
If you have a # prompt, you are root and don't need sudo. I don't know if using sudo as root causes problems, but I am sure it is unnecessary unless you need to do something as another user.
Oscar (not verified)
Wed, 2014-09-10 06:59
Permalink
Virtual Floppy Drive Left on Desktop
I tried installing this the way you described here on my Manjaro system. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to work. However, I got to the step where we unmount the floppy drive (I couldn't get Step 3 to work). I managed to get my BIOS flashed using q-flash and usb drive, but when I rebooted my computer, there is a floppy disk icon on my desktop and there is 7 MiB of unallocated space showing up in gparted. The space and virtual floppy drive were not there before and I can't figure out how to remove it. Do you know anything that could help?
Thanks,
Oscar