Installed Fedora 13 RC2 On Dell Latitude E6400

[Robert L Cochran]

On 05/17/2010 04:16 AM, Gordon Messmer wrote:
> On 05/16/2010 10:26 AM, Robert L Cochran wrote:
>    
>> I'm trying to figure out how to get FreeDOS to see my CD drive so I can
>> do the BIOS update from within FreeDOS. It says it cannot open client
>> CD-ROM device driver "FDCD0000" and SHCDX33A cannot load.
>>      
> http://linux.dell.com/projects.shtml
>
> Use the "biosdisk" script that Dell provides.  The "install" variant
> will create a FreeDOS image and configure your system to load it using
> GRUB.  You'll be able to boot that image and flash your BIOS.
>    

Well yes it will, but the install option is trying to build a floppy 
disk image (size=1,474,560 bytes.) The actual size of the BIOS update 
that I need to flash is 2,966,440 bytes. So invoking biosdisk will 
result in this error at the second CP instruction:

[root at deafeng29 ~]# biosdisk install --title=Dell_BIOS_UP 
/home/rlc/Downloads/E6400A20.EXE
+ mkdir -p /tmp/biosdisk
+ cp -f /usr/share/biosdisk/dosdisk.img /tmp/E6400A20.img
+ mount -t vfat /tmp/E6400A20.img /tmp/biosdisk -o loop
+ cp -f /home/rlc/Downloads/E6400A20.EXE /tmp/biosdisk
cp: writing `/tmp/biosdisk/E6400A20.EXE': No space left on device
+ echo 'E6400A20.EXE '
+ unix2dos /tmp/biosdisk/autoexec.bat
+ umount /tmp/biosdisk
+ rm -rf /tmp/biosdisk
+ '[' '' == 1 ']'
+ '[' 0 == 1 ']'
+ '[' 0 == 0 ']'
+ echo 'Creating BIOS floppy image at /tmp/E6400A20.img'
Creating BIOS floppy image at /tmp/E6400A20.img
+ '[' 1 == 1 ']'
+ install
+ local kernel=/boot/memdisk
+ '[' -z Dell_BIOS_UP ']'
++ dirname /tmp/E6400A20.img
+ '[' /tmp '!=' /boot ']'
+ cp -f /tmp/E6400A20.img /boot
++ basename /tmp/E6400A20.img
+ destination=/boot/E6400A20.img
+ /usr/sbin/blconf --title=Dell_BIOS_UP --add-kernel=/boot/memdisk 
--add-initrd=/boot/E6400A20.img
+ echo 'Copied image to /boot/E6400A20.img and updated bootloader'
Copied image to /boot/E6400A20.img and updated bootloader
+ '[' 0 == 1 ']'
+ '[' 0 == 1 ']'

I'll check Dell's older BIOSes for the E6400 to make sure they really 
are larger than legacy floppy sized. Maybe I can make the image size a 
bit bigger....by 1491880 bytes....

Bob