[opensuse] updating bios with windows/dos utility
Just replaced the motherboard in my Dell Latitude D630 laptop but it comes with an older version of the BIOS installed (A15), and it's apparently quite critical that I have at least A16 (my old motherboard had A17). Of course Dell only supply a Windows/DOS update utility. I found this page detailing how to make it work with FreeDOS: http://www.linuxinsight.com/how-to-flash-motherboard-bios-from-linux-no-dos-... But it seems either out of date or not relevant to openSUSE since I cannot get 'loop' to show in /proc/filesystems, even after installing a couple of dependencies I thought may be related. So instead of creating a file FDOEM.144 with my BIOS update patched into it I just get a directory /tmp/floppy created and nothing else. Anybody know how to adapt this to work under openSUSE 13.2? Cheers, Peter -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 24/12/14 21:14, Carlos E. R. wrote:
On 2014-12-24 21:10, Peter wrote:
But it seems either out of date or not relevant to openSUSE since I cannot get 'loop' to show in /proc/filesystems,
modprobe. You may have to load the module.
I'd tried that. Doing 'modprobe vfat' prompted for root and then worked, putting the entry into proc/filesystems, but 'modprobe loop' doesn't produce any output. I wondered if I could skip it since the floppy image seemed to update after I completed the final step of unmounting it, and my next step was to transfer it to bootable CD, as detailed on the page I linked previously. But now I'm on an absurd merry-go-round of half-broken machines from which I cannot even burn the iso image to a disc, because I'm away from home without access to all my usual bits and bobs, Brasero outright refuses to do anything remotely useful - as indeed it has on every machine I've ever had it installed on during ten years, failing on this occasion to blank my CDRW and whinging that I don't even have a disc in the drive, which is an outright lie. Wodim from the command line also falters. I cannot currently transfer the file to another machine to burn it with the more capable and less sulky K3B because my only transfer facility here is Spideroak and that's decided today to throw a wobbly - as it has done many times over the years - refusing to finish uploading anything, then refusing to finish running the terminal command that's supposed to finish the other unfinished thing. I'm going to end this misery now, I've had enough, it can wait till I return home in the new year, where it's just occurred to me I still, after several aborted attempts to finally abandon it for good, have my 13-year-old PC with a WinME partition on it. Yay! And besides which, if I stay awake some bearded red weirdo might come hurtling down the chimney. Dear Santa, please could you fix my computers for me. I promise to be a good boy. Peter -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 2014-12-24 23:37, Peter wrote:
I'd tried that. Doing 'modprobe vfat' prompted for root and then worked, putting the entry into proc/filesystems, but 'modprobe loop' doesn't produce any output.
No output in Linux mean success. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 13.1 x86_64 "Bottle" at Telcontar)
Peter composed on 2014-12-24 21:10 (UTC+0100):
Just replaced the motherboard in my Dell Latitude D630 laptop but it comes with an older version of the BIOS installed (A15), and it's apparently quite critical that I have at least A16 (my old motherboard had A17). Of course Dell only supply a Windows/DOS update utility.
I found this page detailing how to make it work with FreeDOS: http://www.linuxinsight.com/how-to-flash-motherboard-bios-from-linux-no-dos-...
But it seems either out of date or not relevant to openSUSE since I cannot get 'loop' to show in /proc/filesystems, even after installing a couple of dependencies I thought may be related. So instead of creating a file FDOEM.144 with my BIOS update patched into it I just get a directory /tmp/floppy created and nothing else.
Anybody know how to adapt this to work under openSUSE 13.2?
All Dell BIOS updates I have done with DOS. Machines lacking a floppy to do it with I use a bootable extra HD with DOS and neither AUTOEXEC.BAT nor CONFIG.SYS on its C:. Using a HD means no worries about space for the image to flash. -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
В Wed, 24 Dec 2014 21:10:03 +0100 Peter <gumb@linuxmail.org> пишет:
Just replaced the motherboard in my Dell Latitude D630 laptop but it comes with an older version of the BIOS installed (A15), and it's apparently quite critical that I have at least A16 (my old motherboard had A17). Of course Dell only supply a Windows/DOS update utility.
I found this page detailing how to make it work with FreeDOS: http://www.linuxinsight.com/how-to-flash-motherboard-bios-from-linux-no-dos-...
But it seems either out of date or not relevant to openSUSE since I cannot get 'loop' to show in /proc/filesystems, even after installing a
"loop" is not filesystem and will not appear in /proc/filesystems. Mount command from above description should work; if not, copy and paste exact command invocation and its output.
couple of dependencies I thought may be related. So instead of creating a file FDOEM.144 with my BIOS update patched into it I just get a directory /tmp/floppy created and nothing else.
Anybody know how to adapt this to work under openSUSE 13.2?
Cheers, Peter
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On Wed, Dec 24, 2014 at 1:10 PM, Peter <gumb@linuxmail.org> wrote:
Anybody know how to adapt this to work under openSUSE 13.2?
The absolute simplest method to flashing the BIOS is to download a prebuilt USB image of FreeDOS and dd(1) it to a flash drive [1]. After following the instructions, mount the drive and place the Dell provided update executable on the root of the drive. Restart the computer, boot from the flash drive, choose "FreeDOS Safe Mode" and you should be able to find the executable under C: and flash the BIOS. [1] http://chtaube.eu/computers/freedos/bootable-usb/ Brandon Vincent -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 12/24/2014 02:10 PM, Peter wrote:
Just replaced the motherboard in my Dell Latitude D630 laptop but it comes with an older version of the BIOS installed (A15), and it's apparently quite critical that I have at least A16 (my old motherboard had A17). Of course Dell only supply a Windows/DOS update utility.
I just did this yesterday, on a Lenovo ThinkServer. I used "rufus" to create a freedos bootable USB. (Do a web search for "rufus"). Okay, this does require access to Windows to run "rufus", but it need not be on the same computer. In my case there is no Windows on the Lenovo. Then I plugged the USB into my opensuse box, and copied the BIOS updater to it. I unmounted the USB, then booted to it. The BIOS update went fine. (Lenovo actually recommends using "rufus" for this). -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
A rather old-school but effective method, I have made a Windows 98 bootable recovery USB (The same way you made the FreeDOS one) and have all of the BIOS utilities on this one USB. I have used this for flashing and updating / Changing DMI information on Intel, Dell, MSI and Phoenix motherboards. The reason for windows 98 is that some of the tools by some manufacturers only run on MS DOS and not FreeDOS. On 28 December 2014 at 02:23, Neil Rickert <nrickert@ameritech.net> wrote:
On 12/24/2014 02:10 PM, Peter wrote:
Just replaced the motherboard in my Dell Latitude D630 laptop but it comes with an older version of the BIOS installed (A15), and it's apparently quite critical that I have at least A16 (my old motherboard had A17). Of course Dell only supply a Windows/DOS update utility.
I just did this yesterday, on a Lenovo ThinkServer.
I used "rufus" to create a freedos bootable USB. (Do a web search for "rufus"). Okay, this does require access to Windows to run "rufus", but it need not be on the same computer. In my case there is no Windows on the Lenovo.
Then I plugged the USB into my opensuse box, and copied the BIOS updater to it. I unmounted the USB, then booted to it. The BIOS update went fine. (Lenovo actually recommends using "rufus" for this).
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 15/01/15 09:36, Paul Groves wrote:
A rather old-school but effective method, I have made a Windows 98 bootable recovery USB (The same way you made the FreeDOS one) and have all of the BIOS utilities on this one USB.
I have used this for flashing and updating / Changing DMI information on Intel, Dell, MSI and Phoenix motherboards.
The reason for windows 98 is that some of the tools by some manufacturers only run on MS DOS and not FreeDOS.
That's what I was considering doing with my old WinME machine - making a boot disc with it. But in the end it seems the information I'd read about requiring BIOS update A17 isn't accurate. The A15 version I have is probably sufficient to avoid the specific issues I was concerned about, so I'm going to leave it as it is. Peter -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
You can also do this with the Windows PE (pre-execution environment) which is freely available from Microsoft. It is even possible to make the bootable images from this using only Linux tools. On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 11:13 AM, Peter <gumb@linuxmail.org> wrote:
On 15/01/15 09:36, Paul Groves wrote:
A rather old-school but effective method, I have made a Windows 98 bootable recovery USB (The same way you made the FreeDOS one) and have all of the BIOS utilities on this one USB.
I have used this for flashing and updating / Changing DMI information on Intel, Dell, MSI and Phoenix motherboards.
The reason for windows 98 is that some of the tools by some manufacturers only run on MS DOS and not FreeDOS.
That's what I was considering doing with my old WinME machine - making a boot disc with it. But in the end it seems the information I'd read about requiring BIOS update A17 isn't accurate. The A15 version I have is probably sufficient to avoid the specific issues I was concerned about, so I'm going to leave it as it is.
Peter -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
-- Roger Oberholtzer -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
Here is a link for Windows PE. Even though it is written for Arch Linux, it works basically the same on openSUSE. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Windows_PE On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 3:04 PM, Roger Oberholtzer <roger.oberholtzer@gmail.com> wrote:
You can also do this with the Windows PE (pre-execution environment) which is freely available from Microsoft. It is even possible to make the bootable images from this using only Linux tools.
On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 11:13 AM, Peter <gumb@linuxmail.org> wrote:
On 15/01/15 09:36, Paul Groves wrote:
A rather old-school but effective method, I have made a Windows 98 bootable recovery USB (The same way you made the FreeDOS one) and have all of the BIOS utilities on this one USB.
I have used this for flashing and updating / Changing DMI information on Intel, Dell, MSI and Phoenix motherboards.
The reason for windows 98 is that some of the tools by some manufacturers only run on MS DOS and not FreeDOS.
That's what I was considering doing with my old WinME machine - making a boot disc with it. But in the end it seems the information I'd read about requiring BIOS update A17 isn't accurate. The A15 version I have is probably sufficient to avoid the specific issues I was concerned about, so I'm going to leave it as it is.
Peter -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
-- Roger Oberholtzer
-- Roger Oberholtzer -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
participants (8)
-
Andrei Borzenkov -
Brandon Vincent -
Carlos E. R. -
Felix Miata -
Neil Rickert -
Paul Groves -
Peter -
Roger Oberholtzer