HOWTO: Flash BIOS, The Ubuntu Way

[dcstar]

Hi Guys,

Read this HOWTO and wonder what's it all about? Why wouldn't you just use FLASHROM http://www.coreboot.org/Flashrom

install with

> sudo apt-get install flashrom.

Backup your existing bios with

> flashrom -r original.rom

Write the new one with

> flashrom -w new.rom

reboot and be happy.

FYI I had to use "sudo" for the flashrom commands, but it worked for me on my ASUS/HP motherboard.

[ciscosurfer]

Hi Guys,

Read this HOWTO and wonder what's it all about? Why wouldn't you just use FLASHROM http://www.coreboot.org/Flashrom

install with

> sudo apt-get install flashrom.

Backup your existing bios with

> flashrom -r original.rom

Write the new one with

> flashrom -w new.rom

reboot and be happy.

Use whatever method works best for you. Using flashrom always gave me errors (even thought it claims my chipset is supported). The flashrom utility seems to work well for many people. You can see which devices are supported by going to http://www.coreboot.org/Flashrom or by issuing

flashrom -L

Yes, there are commands to "force" flashrom to probe/read/erase/write...but I wouldn't suggest doing so unless you are absolutely sure you know what you are doing. Again, use the method that works best for you. Thanks to nyarnon for bringing up this method again in this thread as all methods of flashing are good to know about.

[nyarnon]

You can see which devices are supported by going to http://www.coreboot.org/Flashrom or by issuing

flashrom -L

This is partially true as the list only shows known boards. Therefore it would be nice if you own a board that flashes you expand the list. Or if you have one that doesn'r you do the same stating it doesn't work.

Yes, there are commands to "force" flashrom to probe/read/erase/write...but I wouldn't suggest doing so unless you are absolutely sure you know what you are doing.

Let's face it, this extends to the whole procedure of flashing your rom, with or without flashrom.

Again, use the method that works best for you. Thanks to nyarnon for bringing up this method again in this thread as all methods of flashing are good to know about.

Your welcome, considering the many existing procedures It would be nice to see it mentioned in the very first message of this tread, the app can save a lot of people a lot of headache.

[nyarnon]

FYI I had to use "sudo" for the flashrom commands, but it worked for me on my ASUS/HP motherboard.

Your right, I will correct my message accordingly. Thank you for chipping in.

[ciscosurfer]

@nyarnon,

I've amended the first post to talk about flashrom as well. Hopefully people can make use of it if they choose to.

[nyarnon]

@ciscosurfer

Great work, maybe around the release date of Jaunty would be a good time to tidy things up in a v2 of this howto. These distro releases are often a point in time where people also consider flashing

[ciscosurfer]

@ciscosurfer

Great work, maybe around the release date of Jaunty would be a good time to tidy things up in a v2 of this howto. These distro releases are often a point in time where people also consider flashing

Thanks and agreed I hope to give this tutorial a refit in the coming weeks.

[happy_pig]

I have the same problem as others who have to use a windows based bios update - HP provides a file SPXXXXX.exe which runs like a windows installer program when windows is running. Which when after using cabextract provides a bios.wph file along with the other files needed by windows to install it.

Now to see if flashrom would work as described above I backed up my original bios.bin then I wrote it back to see if flashrom would work. Success! Now to see if flashrom handles .wph files. I tried to back up my original using .wph instead of .bin and re-wrote using the same. Success.

Now when trying to use the bios.wph file that I got from the cabextract it says it is too big 514kb as opposed to 512kb. Now I read somewhere that the difference is size may be just a bit of the file that refers to the Windows program that uses that file in its install process and that this bit can be stripped out.
Now does anyone have any experience in doing this and how would I work out which bits to strip out?

This thread http://popey.com/Installing_HP_BIOS_Updates_under_Linux is the one I read about stripping bits out - not sure about trying wine to install as he suggests but the second bit about making the image file the correct size has some potential

Thanks for this thread.

[joris1977]

Hi

Thanks for this howto, I used it successfully a while ago. Now i want to flash another bios, but i can't find the FDOEM.144.gz file anymore. the links in this howto are no longer correct because the freedos moved to a new website. http://www.freedos.org

I know i am an idiot, but i really cannot find the FDOEM.144.gz file. If i find it later i'll drop a link here... I guess the file must be somewhere on the new site. If someone can provide a link in this howto than that would be appreciated a lot.

[twowheeler]

I tried the biosdisk method from this thread, but the bios upgrade file from Dell is R71684.exe, a windows-only file. In freedos I get "This program will not run in DOS mode." It will not run in wine either (no great surprise.) Any suggestions?