On 26/10/2007, Marcel Janssen <korgull@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> I wonder how other fedora users upgrade their BIOS when they need it and would
> be happy to hear about other creative and preferably simple solutions (but
> leaving the floppy drive on my dusty shelf).
>
One interesting way is to create a boot floppy image file, and then
use Grub to boot it from the hard drive. You can loop mount the
image, or set it up so mtools treats the the image file as a drive,
and then copy your new BIOS file to it. The disadvantages of it is
if you mess up your BIOS update, you may not be able to get at the
image file, and you can not save a copy of the current BIOS to it.
If you have partition 1 as your /boot partition, and you have
wbiosboot.img as your image file, you can have an entry like this:
title BIOS update
root (hd0,0)
chainloader /wbiosboot.img
To loop mount it for updating the files, you can uses something
like: (assuming you have a /mnt/image directory)
mount -o loop /boot/wbiosboot.img /mnt/image
A better way, if you can boot from a USB drive, would be to have a
bootable USB "pen" drive set up to do the BIOS update. That way, you
can save the current image before you update.
What ever method you use, it is a good idea to have a CD with a good
BIOS image on it if your MB supports restoring from a CD. Most of
the motherboards I have can flash the BIOS from an image on a floppy
or CD in the case of a failed upgrade, as long as you have the
correct file name on the media. But they do not check for a USB
drive, so if you can no longer boot from the hard drive, or a USB
drive, because your update failed, this may be your only recovery
method.
Mikkel
--
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons,
for thou art crunchy and taste good with Ketchup!
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