HOWTO: Flash BIOS, The Ubuntu Way

[henriquemaia]

Thanks ciscosurfer for this howto. It was very useful (and works nicely too).

[h4mx0r]

The floppy image was far too small to fit my bios and installer so I used bartpe to create a minimal windows live cd with the bios installer file on it. I couldn't find any documentation as to how to use freedos with a cd otherwise I would have.

[Rhubarb]

The floppy image was far too small to fit my bios and installer so I used bartpe to create a minimal windows live cd with the bios installer file on it. I couldn't find any documentation as to how to use freedos with a cd otherwise I would have.

If you look at page 1 of this thread, under the heading,
" Creating the disk (CD-method) "

It'll tell you how (this works wonderfully, thank you OP).

[micschk]

Thanks!
Just updated my HP nc6220 to bios version F13 using your CD way!

(now see if I can hack the BIOS to support my new Atheros wireless card )

[jabeez]

Thanx man, after a lil (or alot) dickin' around I finally got it to work and work it did, now on to other problems........... Cheers!!!!

[olek54321]

I think the subject pretty much says it all. It's laughably easy to update your BIOS now... if you're using a Dell. Thank goodness for their recent embrace of Ubuntu!!

I have a Power Edge SC420 server and since it's never had MS installed I was still running the original (very old) BIOS. I was about to upgrade my Ubuntu and I figured that this was a good opportunity to finally upgrade by BIOS too. I spent a while searching around for this info but hopefully that will make things easier for a few other people out there.

The Dell wiki walks you through the 4 (yes, you read that correctly: 4) commands that you need to enter to flash your BIOS.

http://linux.dell.com/wiki/index.php...itory/firmware

Or, if you're impatient, you can just skip to the cliff notes.

http://linux.dell.com/wiki/index.php...t_all_together

Note that in both places they have specific instructions for Ubuntu. Yay for things that "just work"!!

[AdamTheNewbie]

I think the subject pretty much says it all. It's laughably easy to update your BIOS now... if you're using a Dell. Thank goodness for their recent embrace of Ubuntu!!

Laughable - in a bad way - Not available for the Dell 530.

a.

[rjgwalt3]

I'm a little confused - when I run the command to create an ISO, I get the following:


I'm not clear on how mkisofs is supposed to know where FDOEM is if I've unmounted /mnt/temp.

Hi, I got the same results too, but after a few tries and trying to
read the manpages I came up with this.

Started with FDOEM.144 and copies of my flash files in a directory named "/bios" in my home directory (clever name huh!).

rjgwalt3@Colossus:~$ sudo /bin/bash
root@Colossus:~# mkdir /mnt
root@Colossus:~# mkdir /mnt/temp
root@Colossus:~# modprobe loop
root@Colossus:~# mount -o loop -t vfat /home/rjgwalt3/bios/FDOEM.144 /mnt/temp
root@Colossus:~# cp /home/rjgwalt3/bios/AFUDOS.exe /mnt/temp
root@Colossus:~# cp /home/rjgwalt3/bios/M2NX0907.ROM /mnt/temp

// checked for all files I needed ...

root@Colossus:~# dir /mnt/temp
AFUDOS.exe command.com kernel.sys readme
autoexec.bat config.sys m2nx0907.rom sys.com

// back to HowTo instructions ...

root@Colossus:~# umount /mnt/temp
root@Colossus:~# mkisofs -o Bootable-CD-BIOS-Image.iso -b FDOEM.144 /home/rjgwalt3/bios
I: -input-charset not specified, using utf-8 (detected in locale settings)
Size of boot image is 2880 sectors -> Emulating a 1440 kB floppy
Total translation table size: 2048
Total rockridge attributes bytes: 0
Total directory bytes: 0
Path table size(bytes): 10
Max brk space used 0
1177 extents written (2 MB)

// and burned it here ...

root@Colossus:~# cdrecord -v Bootable-CD-BIOS-Image.iso
wodim: No write mode specified.
wodim: Asuming -tao mode.
wodim: Future versions of wodim may have different drive dependent defaults.
TOC Type: 1 = CD-ROM
Device was not specified. Trying to find an appropriate drive...
Looking for a CD-R drive to store 2.30 MiB...
Detected CD-R drive: /dev/sr0
scsidev: '/dev/sr0'
devname: '/dev/sr0'
scsibus: -2 target: -2 lun: -2
Linux sg driver version: 3.5.27
Wodim version: 1.1.6
Driveropts: 'burnfree'
SCSI buffer size: 64512
Device type : Removable CD-ROM
Version : 5
Response Format: 2
Capabilities :
Vendor_info : 'LITE-ON '
Identification : 'DVDRW LH-20A1S '
Revision : '9L02'
Device seems to be: Generic mmc2 DVD-R/DVD-RW.
Current: 0x0009 (CD-R)
Profile: 0x002B (DVD+R/DL)
Profile: 0x001B (DVD+R)
Profile: 0x001A (DVD+RW)
Profile: 0x0016 (DVD-R/DL layer jump recording)
Profile: 0x0015 (DVD-R/DL sequential recording)
Profile: 0x0014 (DVD-RW sequential recording)
Profile: 0x0013 (DVD-RW restricted overwrite)
Profile: 0x0012 (DVD-RAM)
Profile: 0x0011 (DVD-R sequential recording)
Profile: 0x0010 (DVD-ROM)
Profile: 0x000A (CD-RW)
Profile: 0x0009 (CD-R) (current)
Profile: 0x0008 (CD-ROM)
Profile: 0x0002 (Removable disk)
Using generic SCSI-3/mmc CD-R/CD-RW driver (mmc_cdr).
Driver flags : MMC-3 SWABAUDIO BURNFREE FORCESPEED
Supported modes: TAO PACKET SAO SAO/R96P SAO/R96R RAW/R16 RAW/R96P RAW/R96R
Drive buf size : 988416 = 965 KB
Beginning DMA speed test. Set CDR_NODMATEST environment variable if device
communication breaks or freezes immediately after that.
FIFO size : 12582912 = 12288 KB
Track 01: data 2 MB
Total size: 2 MB (00:15.72) = 1179 sectors
Lout start: 2 MB (00:17/54) = 1179 sectors
Current Secsize: 2048
ATIP info from disk:
Indicated writing power: 5
Is not unrestricted
Is not erasable
Disk sub type: Medium Type A, high Beta category (A+) (3)
ATIP start of lead in: -11634 (97:26/66)
ATIP start of lead out: 359846 (79:59/71)
Disk type: Short strategy type (Phthalocyanine or similar)
Manuf. index: 3
Manufacturer: CMC Magnetics Corporation
Blocks total: 359846 Blocks current: 359846 Blocks remaining: 358667
Forcespeed is OFF.
Speed set to 8467 KB/s
Starting to write CD/DVD at speed 48.0 in real TAO mode for single session.
Last chance to quit, starting real write i 0 seconds. Operation starts.
Waiting for reader process to fill input buffer ... input buffer ready.
Performing OPC...
Starting new track at sector: 0
Track 01: 2 of 2 MB written (fifo 100%) [buf 98%] 21.5x.
Track 01: Total bytes read/written: 2410496/2410496 (1177 sectors).
Writing time: 17.733s
Average write speed 3.2x.
Min drive buffer fill was 98%
Fixating...
Fixating time: 14.780s
BURN-Free was never needed.
wodim: fifo had 38 puts and 38 gets.
wodim: fifo was 0 times empty and 0 times full, min fill was 100%.
root@Colossus:~#

The trick was to substitute the directory where FDOEM.144 was in
place of the second reference to FDOEM.144 .
Hope this might help someone else.

rjgwalt3

[FakeOutdoorsman]

Excellent! Worked perfectly on an old Dell Optiplex GX1. Thanks for the tutorial.

[ray_niblock]

CISCOSURFER - Thanks. Worked a treat on an old KM400 mobo and now recognises my Sempron CPU. Used the method of writing to a CD and was amazed at the ease of flashing without a serious hitch.