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HowTo for Flashing your Bios on a Server running Linux

New Eric Auer Link: http://www.auersoft.eu/soft/by-others/

5 Steps to your bootable USB-Drive so you can flash your Bios

1. Download Makebootfat with the Eric Auer Patch, Command.com (in the download Link it is called FreeCOM), Kernel.sys, Himemx.exe (Version 3.32).
2. Create a directory in /tmp where you have to place, a) all your BIOS Upgrade files b) himemx.exe, c) command.com d) kernel.sys
3. Change to the directory where you untared makebootfat with Eric Auers Patch. You will have FreeDOS and mbr.bin in that directory.
4. Run this command a) "sudo makebootfat -v -H 64 -l -D -3 freedos-fat32lba.bin -E 255 -m mbrfat.bin -o /dev/sdb /tmp/directory_you_created_with_all_the_files_from_step_one". b) if the Stick is totally new and has _not_ been toyed around with, try this: "sudo makebootfat -v -l -P -2 freedos-fat16.bin -3 freedos-fat32lba.bin -E 255 -o /dev/sdb /tmp/directory_you_created_with_all_the_files_from_step_one".
5. If you get a strange command \P not found grab the config.sys and autoexec.bat from here
6. If you get a "E:256" error it is possible that you Bios does not support highmem. Switch off Highmem and command.com should work. Also see this thread.
7. Boot from USB.

Links

• http://www.linuxinsight.com/how-to-flash-motherboard-bios-from-linux-no-dos-windows-no-floppy-drive.html (did not work for me)
• http://ben.franske.com/blogs/2007/08/21/booting_dos_from_a_usb_flash_drive (worked for me with some extra steps)
• http://www.stilen.com/notes/usb_dos_boot.txt (if you follow this HowTo then make sure to make the first cylinder - of the first partition - from 1-214 and nothing else).

Software

• http://rugxulo.googlepages.com/ (FreeDOS)
• http://www.fdos.org/bootdisks/autogen/FDOEM.144.gz (old)
• http://freedos.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/freedos/kernel/trunk/boot/ (this file is included in the Patch of Eric Auer).

Finding out your Bios-Version without doing a reboot

• dmidecode -s bios-version

HP Drive Key Boot Utility

• By using this HP utility I found out that my FileSystem has to be FAT16 (LBA)! Also the first cylinder has to start at 1 and end somewhere at 214. Everything else did not work for my 2GB Victorinox USB-Stick.
• Fdisk partition table looked like this afterwards:

* Make sure you have FAT on that USB-stick and _not_ a FAT32.

Input by Eric Auer

• Use mtools to modify contents of USB and floppy images.
• dd count=8000 if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/floppy ; mkdosfs /tmp/floppy is probably ambiguous. Better use for example bs=1024 count=2880 instead of using only count. If size is higher, better not call the file "floppy" to avoid confusing readers :-).
• Attach:von_eric_auer_6.6.2008.txt
• Attach:von_eric_auer_9.6.2008.txt

Eric Auer's way

1. sudo ~/sys-freedos.pl --lba --drive=255 --disk=/dev/sdb1 http://www.coli.uni-saarland.de/~eric/stuff/soft/specials/sys-freedos-linux.zip - new link of Eric Auer: http://www.auersoft.eu/soft/by-others/
2. sudo mcopy btc-boot/*.* c: http://www.coli.uni-saarland.de/~eric/btc-boot.zip
3. If you want Himem: http://www.japheth.de/Jemm.html