update dell mini 910 bios to aa01

[Iacopo Masi]

So,
I post here what I did and not update my BIOS.
I downloaded the BIOS A01 .exe file from [1]. The file is  2.1 MB, notice that!

The I downloaded the biosdisk script in the 0.75-2 version.
I run the install script and install the package "tofrodos" and
"syslinux" with apt,
for the unix2dos command and the memdisk booter.

Then I run the script with:

sudo biosdisk install /home/lizardking/Scrivania/910_A01.exe

and I get some erros with the dosdisk.img dimension. Infact the DOSDisk
dimension is a floppy one 1.4MB and the exe file is 2.1 MB :(

So I read the readme.dosdisk and found a dos image disk 2.88 MB here [2].
Is this one right? I noticed other image in that site.

I replace it in the /usr/share/biosdisk folder and the rexecuted the script.
That creates the 901_A01.img and memdisk file in the /boot linux fs.

The I edited the /boot/grub/menu.lst file config option from 0 second
to 4 second to get the time to select the option in the boot. I
noticed that the script fills 4 entry for BIOS update. I think it is
an irrelevent bug, however I report it.

I restarted, boot into grub and select one of the four 901_A01.img
option; I boot in the freedos, replay "Y" - Yes to some question and
then the monitor make some flash and the PC restart.

So happy, I went to the BIOS, but report me still versione A00.


Is there something wrong in what I do?

Some could help me?

Thank you.






[1] http://support.euro.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=it&l=it&s=gen&releaseid=R199590&SystemID=inspiron910&servicetag=264CWF1&os=UB80&osl=it&deviceid=18840&devlib=0&typecnt=0&vercnt=2&catid=-1&impid=-1&formatcnt=1&libid=1&fileid=276234
[2] http://www.fdos.org/bootdisks/autogen/FDSTD.288.gz



--

Iacopo Masi
Key ID = 0xC8155272
Key fingerprint = 785B ADDE BFF5 225D EB99 691C C710 DD47 C815 5272
www.iacopomasi.net Home ~ www.ubuntu.it Member ~ www.teamnova.it Staff



On Sun, Nov 2, 2008 at 4:28 AM, Brett Ussher <breusshe at hotmail.com> wrote:
> You probably need to use the biosdisk project. Here is a previous
> posting to this listserv with the webpage you need:
>
> This system is not supported by firmware-tools at the moment. You can
> use biosdisk (http://linux.dell.com/projects.shtml#biosdisk) to make a
> bootable object (grub entry, CD, floppy, ...) using the BIOS as posted
> on support.dell.com for Windows for your system.
>
> -------
>
> This should help you with your updates. It is what I have to use and it
> works great (I use Linux Mint, which is based on the Ubuntu distro).
>
> Brett D. Ussher
>
>
>
> Iacopo Masi wrote:
>> Hello,
>> finally I buy a dell mini 910 series netbook with Ubuntu preinstalled
>> and I noticed that it is present a new version of the BIOS named A01
>> in the support.dell.com site. Unfortunalty this BIOS update is only
>> for windows users. Could I update into my linux box? I tried to do
>> this with the update_firmware python script that reports me the
>> following:
>>
>> Searching storage directory for available BIOS updates...
>> Checking System BIOS for Inspiron 910 - a00
>> Did not find a newer package to install that meets all installation
>> checks.
>>
>> This system does not appear to have any updates available.
>> No action necessary.
>>
>> Complete!
>>
>> Some help?
>>
>>
>> --
>> Iacopo Masi
>> Key ID = 0xC8155272
>> Key fingerprint = 785B ADDE BFF5 225D EB99 691C C710 DD47 C815 5272
>> www.iacopomasi.net Home ~ www.ubuntu.it Member ~ www.teamnova.it Staff
>> _______________________________________________
>> firmware-tools-devel mailing list
>> firmware-tools-devel at lists.us.dell.com
>> http://lists.us.dell.com/mailman/listinfo/firmware-tools-devel
>>
>>
>>
>
>