[SOLVED]flashrom and flashing bios

Inxsible · 2010-06-06 04:31:16

Does anyone have any experience using flashrom to update their bios?

I have a very old (10 yr) laptop and it only has Arch on it. I need to update the BIOS on it because the current one doesn't even support usb booting. So I am planning to update it. I downloaded the exe from Dell for my machine and extracted the file from it.

However, now I don't know which files I would need to use for flashing. Also, how would I check if flashrom is compatible with the motherboard that I have?

Here's my lscpi

╔═[22:49]═[inxs @ arch]
╚═══===═══[~]>> lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82815 815 Chipset Host Bridge and Memory Controller Hub (rev 04)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82815 815 Chipset AGP Bridge (rev 04)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 03)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801BAM ISA Bridge (LPC) (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801BAM IDE U100 Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801BA/BAM USB Controller #1 (rev 03)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV11 [GeForce2 Go] (rev b2)
02:03.0 Multimedia audio controller: ESS Technology ES1983S Maestro-3i PCI Audio Accelerator (rev 10)
02:06.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c556 Hurricane CardBus [Cyclone] (rev 10)
02:06.1 Communication controller: 3Com Corporation Mini PCI 56k Winmodem (rev 10)
02:0f.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI4451 PC card Cardbus Controller
02:0f.1 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI4451 PC card Cardbus Controller
02:0f.2 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments PCI4451 IEEE-1394 Controller

and here's my /proc/cpuinfo

╔═[00:34]═[inxs @ arch]
╚═══===═══[~]>> cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 11
model name      : Intel(R) Pentium(R) III Mobile CPU      1133MHz
stepping        : 1
cpu MHz         : 1129.679
cache size      : 512 KB
fdiv_bug        : no
hlt_bug         : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 2
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov pse36 mmx fxsr sse up
bogomips        : 2260.49
clflush size    : 32
cache_alignment : 32
address sizes   : 36 bits physical, 32 bits virtual
power management:

Last edited by Inxsible (2010-06-25 02:50:26)

lagagnon · 2010-06-06 05:39:10

Check here if your motherboard is supported:
http://www.flashrom.org/Supported_hardware

Inxsible · 2010-06-06 05:47:28

lagagnon wrote:

Check here if your motherboard is supported:
http://www.flashrom.org/Supported_hardware

Yeah I had seen that before, but I didn't know what the exact mobo was in my laptop. In any case, I found that simply entering

sudo flashrom

tells you the motherboard and chipset, which I can then find in the supported list using

flashrom -L | grep whatevernameyougotfromthefirstcommand

Now the only question is, will flashrom accept an exe file as input to write it to the mobo? or do I have to extract the exe and if so, which file do I pass to flashrom for the write?? Hmmm, the documentation doesn't tell you what files to pass in exactly. I have just read about examples which say flashrom -w file.bin , but when I looked into my exe, I only have 1 .bin file and that is only 1KB. There are some windows cabinet files which are 1.6MB and 900KB.

Here are the sizes of the individual files in the exe

total 3343
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root    4096 Jun  5 22:37 ./
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root    4096 Jun  6 00:02 ../
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root  932255 Mar  3  2003 data1.cab*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root   21168 Mar  3  2003 data1.hdr*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 1642777 Mar  3  2003 data2.cab*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root  338488 May 28  2002 ikernel.ex_*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root     453 Mar  3  2003 layout.bin*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root  182134 Oct  7  2002 setup.bmp*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root  139264 Jan 10  2000 Setup.exe*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root     253 Mar  3  2003 Setup.ini*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root  140771 Mar  3  2003 setup.inx*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root     554 Oct  7  2002 setup.iss*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root      48 Oct  7  2002 vssver.scc*

Reading some comments on this developer's blog leads me to believe that the new bios has to be the exact size of the old one. My old bios is 512 KB, so now I am not sure which file to use.

http://www.hermann-uwe.de/blog/flashing … g-flashrom

Last edited by Inxsible (2010-06-06 07:33:12)

Inxsible · 2010-06-06 07:47:08

I tried verifying it against each and every file that i had in the BIOS exe, but for all it said that the image file size doesn't match. I guess I will have to re-install Windows on the machine just to get the bios updated.

Ooh what a royal pain in the ass.

Ramses de Norre · 2010-06-06 08:54:56

This might work, scroll down to "biosdisk". I tried that once and didn't succeed (I ended up using windows) but maybe I did something wrong.

Edit: link colors don't really stand out in the new theme it seems.. The first this is a link.

Last edited by Ramses de Norre (2010-06-06 08:56:29)

Inxsible · 2010-06-06 16:00:49

Ramses de Norre wrote:

This might work, scroll down to "biosdisk". I tried that once and didn't succeed (I ended up using windows) but maybe I did something wrong.
Edit: link colors don't really stand out in the new theme it seems.. The first this is a link.

Looks promising, but can you tell me how you didn't succeed? After you weren't successful, were you still able to install Windows on the machine without changing the BIOS chip?

I am a little concerned because mine is a laptop, and if the BIOS gets fried, there wouldn't be anyway for me to put in a new BIOS chip. and the computer even though 10 yr old still works with Arch pretty well.

skottish · 2010-06-06 16:07:40

This is what I did the last time that I had to update the BIOS:

http://www.linuxinsight.com/how-to-flas … drive.html

Inxsible · 2010-06-07 04:57:07

skottish, I would be hard pressed to find a working floppy disk. and even if I did, I am not sure if my floppy drive in the laptop would work being that I haven't used it in about 9 years.

In any case, I tried to write my BIOS using flashrom with

sudo flashrom - w biosbackup.bin

biosbackup.bin was a file that flashrom created by reading my existing BIOS. Issuing the above command failed miserably and the error told me that my BIOS was shot and that I shouldn't REBOOT OR POWEROFF.

I must say I cursed myself at that point. Then I sent a frantic email to Uwe Hermann, a developer of flashrom. After waiting about half a day, my nerves were a little calm and I thought to myself that its an old computer, so it wouldnt be like I would lose a lot. So after backing up all the important files from the machine, I just took the leap of faith and rebooted. Thankfully everything worked. So I am happy now.

Now I guess I can try doing what Ramses de Norre suggested. Its by Dell, which is what I have so that *must* work ;-)

Or I can simply install Windows XP, update BIOS and then remove XP and re-install Arch. Its been about 5 yrs since I did a install on this laptop, so its about time. :-D

Inxsible · 2010-06-25 02:50:04

Used biosdisk, and it worked. The only thing is that you need to download a BIOS executable and not a Windows executable.

I had the latter and it just wouldn't work, so I emailed the maintainer and he pointed me in the right direction. Trouble is that most times the OEM manufacturers provide the Windows executable for downloads. You have to dig deep into their available files to get the BIOS executable.

Anyway, it helped me a lot since, my CD drive is shot on the machine, so this was the only way i could update the BIOS.

Later on, I might write a WIKI article to explain what I did. MAybe it could help someone else who needs to update his/her BIOS without having to install Windows.

Arch Linux

#1 2010-06-06 04:31:16

[SOLVED]flashrom and flashing bios

#2 2010-06-06 05:39:10

Re: [SOLVED]flashrom and flashing bios

#3 2010-06-06 05:47:28

Re: [SOLVED]flashrom and flashing bios

#4 2010-06-06 07:47:08

Re: [SOLVED]flashrom and flashing bios

#5 2010-06-06 08:54:56

Re: [SOLVED]flashrom and flashing bios

#6 2010-06-06 16:00:49

Re: [SOLVED]flashrom and flashing bios

#7 2010-06-06 16:07:40

Re: [SOLVED]flashrom and flashing bios

#8 2010-06-07 04:57:07

Re: [SOLVED]flashrom and flashing bios

#9 2010-06-25 02:50:04

Re: [SOLVED]flashrom and flashing bios

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